


Pride and Prejudice and...Buffy?

by blue_sweater_spike



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV), Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/F, F/M, Historical, Romantic Comedy, Season/Series 05, Slow Build
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-09-28 05:36:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17176898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_sweater_spike/pseuds/blue_sweater_spike
Summary: Buffy and books are usually non-mixy things. Not because she doesn't like reading; she would if she had time, or so she tells herself. But a slayer's life doesn't leave much room for the enjoyment of literature, not when there are so many other things to do like study, slay, try to find time to spend with her friends and boyfriend, and wrangle her kid sister who just arrived in town. But an encounter with a strange librarian and a special edition of Pride and Prejudice just for Buffy is about to change that. When Buffy, her friends, and a few enemies find themselves trapped in the plot of Jane Austen's beloved novel, the only way out is to embrace their roles and reach the end--or be trapped indefinitely. It doesn't help that they all keep forgetting their old lives in Sunnydale. Well, almost everyone. Spike seems immune. Moreover he seems to know the plot like the back of his hand--and he isn't happy to discover he's been cast as Mr. Darcy. Especially when he finds out the Slayer is playing Elizabeth Bennet.Will the creature keeping them in the story stick to script, or will the plot thicken in unexpected ways?





	1. Chapter 1

“I don’t know why you need my help,” Buffy was saying as she and Willow ascended the steps to the Sunnydale Public Library, “you know my time for reading anything more than a Cosmo is basically zilch. ”

Willow flashed her friend a lopsided smile. “I know, I know, but I wanna spend the day with my friend and since I’ve got to find something for that research paper…” She gestured at the library double doors.

Buffy frowned. She had mixed feelings about libraries. They prompted a flood of bittersweet memories of all the times she and the Scoobies had spent their evenings with Giles researching various demons and magics before the school had blown to Hell. They were also reminders that, despite how much she might like to settle into a good book, she simply never had the time. There was always some slaying to do, and when she wasn’t slaying she was training, and when she wasn’t training she was trying to have some semblance of a social life. Books and reading fell by the wayside in favor of more immediately consumable media, like magazines and—rarely—TV. 

“Plus I thought you could use some time away from Dawn,” Willow added, pushing through the entrance and into the lobby of the library.

Buffy twisted her mouth, feeling guilty. “Yeah…she’s my kid sister and I love her, but…I’m still adjusting to her living with us again, you know?”

Willow nodded sagely. “Well, nothing better for that than a good book!” She straightened suddenly with a perky smile. “Hey, you know how we used to study while you were on patrol? Maybe I can come with you sometimes, read something to you. Or--or you could read to yourself, if you don’t want me along.” 

“Why wouldn’t I want you along?” Buffy asked.

Willow flashed her familiar self-deprecating grin. “I dunno, it’s just you and Riley are always together…”

Buffy pursed her lips. Riley was a good guy and she really liked him, but he had been showing up a lot lately when she didn’t want him to.

“I know he just wants to help, but he kinda cramps my style,” she said finally. “But you guys don’t really get in the way. You’d really come along and read to me?”

Willow nodded emphatically. “Well, yeah, duh!”

For the first time that morning, Buffy beamed. While she’d like to finish a book on her own, she appreciated knowing her friend was willing to support her that way.

“I’d like that.”

“Well,” Willow indicated the shelves upon shelves of books now surrounding them, “we’re in the right place to find something!”

“Right.” As Buffy looked around, she suddenly felt a bit overwhelmed by the prospect of choosing one. Where should she even begin?

As if reading her mind, Willow pointed toward a section to their left. “Ooo, you could choose a classic. They’re always good, which, you know, is why they’re called ‘classics.’”

“Aren’t they kinda doorstop-y?” Buffy scrunched her nose in doubt. “And written by a bunch of old dudes?”

“Not all of them,” Willow answered quickly, “there are some really good not doorstop-y ones, and-and a lot by women. There’s Frankenstein!”

“That was written by a lady?”

Willow nodded.

Buffy thought about it before shaking her head with a shudder. “Too…Adam-y.”

“Oh! You’re so right!” Willow searched her mental catalogue for something else. “Okay, so nothing monsterific. Okay, there’s the Brontë sisters.”

Buffy seemed to recall something about them from an English class in high school. “Aren’t they kinda depressing?”

“Yeah,” Willow admitted, slumping. “I guess nothing depressing either. Life’s too short, right?”

Suddenly her eyes lit up. “Oh! Of course! There’s Jane Austen! She wrote lots of good stuff.”

Buffy perked up at the mention of Jane Austen. She’d gone to see Sense and Sensibility with her mom and Dawn a few years ago. At the time she’d only really appreciated that it starred Hugh Grant, but she’d liked it enough.

“Yeah, I can look for that.” She smiled at Willow. “Thanks, Will. Where will you be?”

She made a face. “I won’t be far. I’ll be over there. Gotta do a paper over Dostoevsky and Cherneshevsky.”

“Who and huh?”

Willow shook her head. “Classic Russian literature. It’s good and all, but definitely not in the fun-reads category. And totally doorstop-y.”

Buffy gave her friend a sympathetic look. Willow shrugged before directing Buffy once more to the right section. She deposited her between two long shelves and bounced off to find the books for her paper, her red hair whisking from side to side.

Her friend out of sight, Buffy turned to the tall shelves. With Willow gone, they seemed to loom over her, heavy with books. She squared her shoulders defiantly.

“I’m the Slayer,” she murmured to herself, raising her chin, “I dust vampires and crush demons on the reg without chipping a nail. I can pick out one stupid book and read it.”

The tips of her fingers ran along the spines of the books as she combed along the shelves, looking for Jane Austen. When she finally found the author’s section, she saw that there were six different titles to choose from: Sense and Sensibility, Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Mansfield Park, Northanger Abbey, and Persuasion.

Her fingers hovered over one of a few editions of Sense and Sensibility. She’d seen the movie, she reasoned, so it wouldn’t be that hard to follow the book. Even if—who was she kidding: when—she got interrupted by something requiring slayage, she wouldn’t be completely lost when she picked it back up again.

But then her gaze landed on the collection of Pride and Prejudice novels. Now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered trying to watch the BBC miniseries. But that had come out right around the time she’d been Called and, well, she’d never had the opportunity to finish.

“Oh, that’s a good one,” someone said from behind her.

Buffy whirled, her hands half-rising into a defensive stance. But there was just an old, frumpy-looking lady standing behind her, and she quickly dropped her arms, embarrassed.

“I’m sorry, did I scare you?” The woman peered over her glasses with a kindly expression. Buffy noticed she was carrying a stack of books and was wearing a name tag that read “Ms. Muse.” She was one of the librarians. She’d almost decked one of the librarians.

“Just jumpy, sorry,” Buffy smiled apologetically.

The librarian nodded, her focus drifting back to the novels behind Buffy’s shoulder. 

“Jane Austen,” she sighed happily, “one of my absolute favorite authors. Have you read her before?”

“No,” Buffy answered sheepishly.

The librarian’s eyes lit up. “Oh, well you simply must!”

“Where should I start?”

The librarian blinked at her. “They’re all fantastic. Why not check them all out?”

“All six?” Buffy exclaimed. The librarian didn’t seem fazed by her outburst. Feeling her cheeks begin to burn, she shoved her hands into her jean pockets and explained, “I don’t really have a lot of time to read.”

“Ah,” the librarian said, ducking her head and nodding sadly. “I see. Well, one good book leads to another. Finding the perfect fit might make a bookworm of you yet!”

“Uh, yeah,” Buffy nodded, shifting uncomfortably. “So…where should I start?”

“What do you want out of a book?” The librarian rejoined, shifting the stack of books she was carrying into a more comfortable position.

Buffy considered the question. What did she want out of a book? She hated admitting it, but even before she became The Slayer she hadn’t given books much thought. There had always been something more immediately satisfying to do. In class her focus always wandered, and outside of class, well, there was friends, shopping, cheerleading or gymnastics to occupy her.

Instead she found herself thinking about the kinds of television and movies she liked. She appreciated a good action flick, but since she did plenty of action-y things in her daily (well, nightly) life, the genre was steadily losing its appeal. Fantasy and sci-fi? Again, packed to the gills with that weirdness already.

So…there was romance, she guessed. At the beginning of her relationship with Riley, there’d been an element of that, but now things were different. And she missed it. Watching her parents’ marriage fall apart had also impressed upon her a deep desire for a sweeping kind of love, the kind she thought she had with Angel before that turned into a full-on tragedy.

And she also liked watching shows about friends and family. Her social life was pretty good, as far as friends were concerned, but her family life had recently become complicated with Dawn. What she would really like was a book that made all that simpler and happier. A book without monsters interrupting life every few minutes and derailing everything.

The librarian watched her closely as she deliberated. Finally, Buffy said, “Something light, maybe? With hot guys on horses and…I don’t know, a loving family?”

The librarian’s eyes twinkled as she chuckled. Were they extra sparkly?

“Well, Jane Austen is certainly a good fit for that.” She paused and gave Buffy an appraising look. “You know, you remind me of Lizzy.”

“Who?”

The librarian didn’t answer but hoisted the books in her hands decisively. “Come on. I’ve got a special edition Pride and Prejudice just for you.”

She started to bustle off. 

“Wait,” Buffy called, hurrying after her. God, for an old lady she went awfully fast. “I can’t—my work can get really messy. I wouldn’t want to ruin your book.”

“Nonsense,” the librarian said over her shoulder, “it’s hardcover and quite sturdy. Just right for you.”

The librarian rounded the front desk, placing the stack of books on a small, rolling cart to be dealt with later. 

“You wait right there, dear, I’ll be back in a jiffy!”

Buffy started to protest, but the librarian hurried off into the back room before Buffy could refuse her offer again. 

Sighing in exasperation, she crossed her arms and looked down at her feet. It was nice the librarian had taken an interest in her, sure, but more than one of her textbooks during high school and college had met ill-fated ends while she was on patrol. Books, as it turned out, were very useful for blocking talons and sharp implements. Really heavy ones were good for throwing at heads, too, she’d discovered. When it came right down to it, she’d probably used books for just about everything other than reading.

“Here we are, dear!”

Buffy’s head snapped up. She could have sworn she’d only been looking at her shoes for a second. There was no way the old lady could have gone to the back and come back in that time. But maybe she’d gotten lost in thought and hadn’t noticed time slipping by?

“Thanks, really, but I—” Buffy paused as the librarian set the book on the countertop. It was beautiful; it had a cherry red cover and curling gold filigree patterned like vines twined across it. She wanted to touch it, to hold it, to crack it open and smell the luxurious vanilla scent of old book pages, a scent comforting and familiar to her from working with Giles’ old tomes.

“I—I might…” she bit her lower lip, deliberating. She knew she shouldn’t; even now she could picture a demon’s raking talons shredding its cover and pages, ruining the perfect golden curly-cues. But she found herself saying, “I might be able to take it.”

“Well of course you can!” The librarian beamed. “I insist!”

She pushed the book across to Buffy, whose hands itched to pick it up. When she did, it felt pleasantly warm against her palms. 

“I—I don’t have a library card.”

“Oh, I see your friend in here often enough,” the librarian winked, “I’ll just put it on her account. Unless you think she’d mind?”

Her fingers traced the curving vines and calligraphy spelling out Pride and Prejudice on the cover. Strange, if she unfocused her eyes just a bit, the title seemed to swim and change, but every time she tried to read it, it sprang back to Pride and Prejudice. A little weird, but then eyes played tricks like that when you let them relax.

“No, she wouldn’t,” Buffy answered belatedly.

The librarian’s smile deepened, spreading wrinkles across her face. “Good friends and good books; there’s no better combination!”

Buffy hugged the book to her chest. “Thank you.”

The librarian nodded and leaned over the counter, looking in the direction they’d come.

“I believe I saw your friend already reading at one of the back tables. How long do you plan on staying?”

“All day I think.” 

“Well, how fortunate!” the librarian exclaimed. “You can get started straight away!”

That suggestion cheered Buffy. She suddenly felt like a kid at the school book fair again. Even when she’d lost interest in the books halfway through them, she’d always experienced a thrill buying them. Squeezing the volume tighter, she grinned. 

“Yeah, you’re right. I do have all day!” Maybe she wouldn’t have to take it on patrol after all. If she could read most or all of it today, she could just turn it back in. No book on patrol, no paper-shredding disasters!

With that, she set off at a brisk trot toward the back tables. 

She found Willow quickly. She was already curled up in a chair, her head resting on her arm, a book open in her lap. As was typical of Willow with a book, she was so engrossed that she barely acknowledged Buffy when she appeared.

“Didja find something?” she asked, her eyes still glued to the page in front of her.

“Yep!” Buffy placed the text on the table and plopped into a seat. “Pride and Prejudice.”

Willow nodded absently. “That one’s good. It’s a classic.”

“Yep, it is. Look at me, a classics-readin’ gal.”

Willow continued reading but nodded vaguely. “Uh-huh.”

Buffy pouted a little at her friend’s inattention, but that was just Willow and literature. Shrugging off her cardigan, she settled further into her chair, pulled the book into her lap, and cracked it open.

And that was when everything went completely wiggy.


	2. Chapter 2

Buffy felt so very comfortable lying in the dark, surrounded by delicious warmth, the bed sheets thrown over her head. Their fabric was soft and smooth, the comforter above it filled with fluffy down, and everything was…everything was just…

Her eyes flew abruptly open. A moment later she clawed the covers down, wincing against the bright morning light.

“Ugh.” She squinted and blinked rapidly. How’d she get in bed?

And whose room was she in? It sure as hell wasn’t hers.

She sat up stiffly, glancing around. Okay, she was in a canopy bed, its heavy curtains drawn back to let in the pale sunlight. A nice cherry vanity stood across from the bed, a full length mirror in one corner, a wash-basin in another. A stately chest of drawers was against the wall to her right, and little ceramic figurines were arranged on its surface.

What was this, a fancy B&B? How’d she end up here? Everything was familiar and at the same time so…not.

Buffy groaned, her head falling back on her shoulders. “Oh God, what now?”

It was a spell. It had to be. Only…what had caused it? Who had cast it? And where was she?

She massaged her temples as she tried to think.

“Okay, Buffy, what kinda crazy wackadoodle weirdness have you gotten into now?” She tried her best to remember what she’d been doing just before waking up. Something about taking a walk around the park, as she was wont to do? Or…or going somewhere in the city? To a big public building…

“Miss Elizabeth?”

Buffy started. A woman she didn’t recognize was peering into her room.

“Uh, yes?”

“Breakfast is ready, miss.”

“Breakfast?”

“Yes,” the woman said. She was dressed weirdly, all old-timey, in a simple dress and apron. Buffy suddenly knew she was a maid. “Mr. Bennet has been asking for you.”

Buffy opened her mouth to ask a question (actually she had about a million), but promptly closed it. Years of living on the Hellmouth had taught her that sometimes it was better to exercise caution in situations such as these. Better to play along for now, get a lay of the land first. Who knew, maybe this was one of her Slayer dreams, one of those where she saw the life of a previous slayer? That would make a certain amount of sense, even if it didn’t feel quite right.

“Your wrapper was just laundered,” the maid said, entering the room and draping a garment on the back of the vanity’s chair.

“Thanks.” Buffy pulled her knees up to her chest and hugged them. “I’ll be right down.”

The maid nodded and left, closing the door gently behind her.

Buffy took a few deep breaths. Her head felt strange, kinda foggy, each thought dripping reluctantly through her mind like syrup. She had the distinct sensation that this was her house and that if she thought hard enough, she could imagine each room inside perfectly. And yet she also was certain that she had never seen this place before and that something was horribly wrong.

“I can do this.” She set her jaw and pushed the covers completely down, swiveling to get out of bed. “If I could escape that gross Hell-dimension in LA, I can get out of this. Whatever this new awfulness is, I can take it.”

All thoughts of awfulness wavered as she picked up the dressing gown.

“Silk,” she whispered reverently, feeling the luxuriously light and fine material. It was light blue and trimmed in delicate lace, and when she put it on it fit perfectly. Wrapping it around her chemise with a delighted smile, she made her way out of her room.

Buffy wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find downstairs. Breakfast, for starters, and somebody named Mr. Bennet. While she could certainly smell food, she halted halfway down the stairs upon seeing a familiar figure standing in the entrance hall.

“Giles?”

Her Watcher whirled around.

“Buffy!” He fiddled nervously with his glasses, a relieved smile briefly bending his mouth. “Thank God you’re alright.”

“What are you doing here?” Buffy asked, trotting down the steps.

“Well to be quite honest I was hoping you’d tell me that,” Giles said, glancing around. “And where is here, exactly?”

“Buffy?”

Buffy’s head swiveled to look back up the stairs. On the landing stood her mother, who was busy tying her own dressing gown closed in front.

“Mom?”

“Joyce?”

“Mr. Giles?” She fixed her daughter with a bewildered look. “What on Earth is going on here?”

Buffy opened her mouth and closed it several times, looking between Giles and her mother, trying to make everything fit into place. How could they both be here? Why wouldn’t they be here? They were her mother and father after all, weren’t they? And this was their house…

From the floor above came several muffled thumps and screams.

Okay, this was definitely not a Slayer dream.

Buffy’s Slayer reflexes kicked in at the sound of a struggle upstairs. She bounded past her mother and was about to break a support out of the banister when a gaggle of girls appeared on the second floor landing.

“Cordelia? What’re you doing here?”

Cordelia tossed her brown hair out of her face, her eyes wide.

“What am I doing here? What are you doing here? Where the hell is here?”

Before she could answer, another girl surged past Cordelia and almost knocked Buffy down the stairs.

“Buffy!” Dawn squeezed her sister tight around the ribs.

Buffy returned her sister’s embrace. “Dawnie, are you okay?”

“Yeah, but…what’s going on?”

“Yeah, I’d sure as hell like to know,” Anya said, appearing behind Cordelia.

Cordelia glanced back at her. “Who the hell is this? Wait, aren’t you that girl from school?”

“Oh,” a soft voice began, “she’s Anya, a-and I’m Tara.” Tara’s round face appeared behind the other girls as she crammed into the space at the top of the stairs, pushing her fall of ash-blonde hair behind her ear with a shy smile. “Has anybody seen Willow?”

“Willow,” Buffy repeated. There was something about Willow. “I thought I was just with her.”

And then everyone started talking at once, hurling questions at her and each other, gesturing wildly as they tried to understand what was happening.

Suddenly a voice boomed above them all.

“ENOUGH!”

At the base of the stairs, Giles glared up at them.

“Everyone to the dining room. Now.”

***

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose, pushing his glasses up onto his forehead.

“So, nobody remembers how we got here?”

Silence greeted his question. Buffy stared into her lap while Dawn sat in the chair next to her, picking at her food. It smelled heavenly, truth be told, but the whole situation had scared off everyone’s appetites, judging by the untouched plates.

“And we don’t even know where here is?”

“I know,” Tara suddenly said, staring into the middle-distance with a look of concentration. “Someplace called Longbourn.”

“Longbourn?” Giles repeated, narrowing his eyes. “Why does that sound familiar? Rather British-sounding, isn’t it?”

“Wait a minute, Longbourn?” Cordelia chimed in, grimacing. “Isn’t that from something?”

“Yes,” Joyce said thoughtfully, tilting her head, “it is, but…I can’t remember what.”

“What’s with our clothes?” Dawn glanced around the room. “They’re like costumes.”

Anya brightened. “Oh, I know this! They’re Regency.”

“Regency?” Cordelia repeated flatly. “What’s that?”

“It’s a time-period in your history from the around the turn of the nineteenth century to 1830,” Anya supplied helpfully. She glanced around the room. “Yep. Definitely Regency England.”

Cordelia’s eyes began to bug again. “The nineteenth century? How’s that even possible?”

Anya shrugged. “Don’t look at me. I don’t have the mo-jo to do this kind of thing anymore.”

“Is there anything else we can remember about this place or how we got here?” Giles interrupted irritably, taking his glasses off his face altogether.

Again, there was a long moment of silence. Then Joyce spoke, beginning slowly.

“No, but I feel like I know something…” she paused introspectively. “Oh! We have new neighbors!” she finally exclaimed, straightening in her seat. “They’ve rented Netherfield Park! Can you believe it?”

Buffy eyed her incredulously. “Mom, how can you be thinking about the make-up of the neighborhood at a time like this?”

Giles held up a quieting hand. “No, no, Buffy, your mother has a point.”

“What?” Buffy and Dawn said in unison.

“Oh, Mr. Giles, you simply have to go meet them,” her mother continued excitedly. “While we’re here we should try to be neighborly. And you know, the girls…”

“Yes, yes,” Buffy’s Watcher mumbled, apparently understanding exactly what her mother was saying. “I might.”

“You have to!” Joyce insisted shrilly.

Dawn leaned forward to look at their mother. “Mom, calm down!”

To Buffy’s dismay, Giles was nibbling on the arm of his glasses, apparently deep in thought. “Giles, you can’t seriously be thinking about taking a break from figuring out where—or when—the hell we are to go have a little chit-chat with the neighbors?”

“Well, I’m not quite sure what else there is to be done,” Giles sighed, leaning back in his chair. “None of us have gotten anywhere just speculating. Maybe talking to people will help us understand what is happening here.”

“Why don’t you look it up in your books,” Cordelia asked, her arms crossed firmly over her chest. “You carry them everywhere.”

“Quite right,” Giles agreed happily, before his face fell again, “but…did I bring them here?”

Tara looked up from her plate, where she’d been pushing her eggs around with a fork unenthusiastically. “You could try your study. I think you have one.”

Giles brightened again. “Oh, I do! Yes, yes, I’ll look there.”

“But Mr. Giles,” her mother pressed, “you can’t forget to greet Mr. Bingley. If you don’t see him, we can’t.”

“Can’t?” Buffy looked between her mother and Giles. “Why not? And who’s Mr. Binglesby?”

Anya laughed as if the Slayer had told a particularly funny joke. “You can’t, not in this stuffy time period. Women need a formal introduction to a man, usually given by a male relative.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped. “What?”

Anya shrugged. “Hey, it’s not the worst it’s ever been. And if you think this society is repressed, just wait ‘til the Victorian era.” She gained a far-away, wistful look. “So many angry women. So many vengeful hearts.”

Cordelia was twisting her lips. “Gah, Mr. Bingley. I remember that weirdo name from somewhere…”

“Well I’m not gonna just sit around,” Buffy said, pushing back from the table, “I’m gonna go meet these neighbors myself.”

“You will not!” Giles pinned her with a sharp glare. “We don’t even know what this is yet. We’re under a spell, that seems obvious, but we don’t know if we’re in a dream or-or an alternate dimension or actually back in time. If it’s the latter, you could cause irreversible damage going around without regard to the period.”

Buffy slumped. “What am I supposed to do, then?”

“What am I supposed to do?” Dawn followed up, pouting impressively.

“What are we supposed to do?” Tara whispered.

Joyce flapped a hand excitedly. “Oh, there’s some embroidery we could work on!”

“Embroidery?” Cordelia arched her eyebrow. “As if. Look, I was actually doing something important before this—this freakiness happened. I can’t remember what, but…I really need to get back.”

“We all had things we were doing before this,” Giles said, before everyone could start talking at once. “Look, just give me a chance to go through my study. Buffy, you can walk around the house grounds, but please, have some restraint and don’t talk to anybody.”

“What about the maids?” Buffy jolted with a sudden realization. “Maybe they know what’s going on.”

“They don’t,” Giles said flatly. “I tried talking to several of them. They just kept calling me ‘Mr. Bennet’ and talking about breakfast and other inane drivel.”

Buffy crossed her arms and began pouting right alongside Dawn. “Fine. I’ll stay close. But I’m gonna slay whatever did this so hard.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Good one.”

Giles rose from his seat. “Well, that settles it. I’ll go look in my study—” he beamed at the prospect, “—and if that falls through, I might go talk to this Mr. Bingley person.”

Joyce frowned angrily. “You should go talk to him first. The girls—”

“Yes, yes,” Giles nodded again as if he knew exactly what she was about to say, “I know.”

Buffy huffed in exasperation. “Know what? Why do you keep saying that, Mom?”

Joyce gave her daughter a look like she’d just sprouted two heads. “Well, he must marry one of you, of course.”

Silence gripped the table. Then, as one, all the girls cried in thunderous concert, “WHAT?”

~*~

 

Spike had woken up in a lot of strange situations in his undeath, but he’d never gone to sleep in one time period and woken up in another.

The jostling of the carriage roused him. They hit a bump, his head lolled sharply forward, and he jerked awake.

At the same time, the person sitting across from him stirred.

It took him a bleary second to realize it was Xander—and also that daylight was streaming in through the carriage windows.

He yelped, pulling away from the sunlight in panic before realizing there was nowhere to go. In another moment, he realized it didn’t hurt.

“What the—Spike?” Xander, who also appeared to have just woken up, widened his eyes. “But—it’s daylight and you’re not makin’ with the fog machine act?”

He glanced at his hands, looking for the Gem of Amara. “Yeah, genius, I soddin’ noticed.”

“And—and your clothes. My clothes!” Xander glanced between them. “When did we get hired by the BBC?”

Spike did a quick inventory, marking the style of the coats and interior of the carriage. That was right about the time he also noticed another figure tucked up on the seat next to him.

Her blue eyes were wide and her mouth was open, momentarily speechless. But when he looked at her, she gasped, “Blondie Bear?”

“Oh bloody hell,” he muttered under his breath. Of all the people to be stuck in a rattling box with, it had to be them.

“What’s going on?”

“Yeah, I second that,” Xander said, raising a hand. “How did we get here?”

“Why’re you both lookin’ at me?” Spike said. “I don’t have a bloody clue.”

“Oh my God,” Harmony breathed, sticking her hands into the direct sunlight, “look, Boo Boo, I’m not burning!”

“Neither am I, pet.” Despite the confusing circumstances of their situation, he couldn’t help but wonder at that. The light reflected brightly off his pale skin and the warmth of it was delicious.

“Does this mean we’re invincible?”

“Don’t know,” Spike answered coolly before his eyes flicked up to Xander. “I can think of one way to find out.”

His face melted into its demonic visage, and he lunged for Xander. Xander screamed and held his arms up defensively, but he was no match for Spike’s superior strength. Wrenching his hands away, Spike struck at his neck, his fangs bared, and felt them slide into yielding flesh—

And then, with an unpleasant jerk that seemed to grab him around the belly, he was suddenly sitting exactly as he was when he’d first opened his eyes. The carriage rumbled along the road as Xander stared wide-eyed at Spike, and Spike glanced around once more.

“Okay, that was so weird,” Harmony said from her snug corner of the carriage.

Xander’s face promptly fell into angry lines. “You tried to bite me!”

“Yeah, well, didn’t work, didit?” Spike sneered.

“Was it the chip?” Xander asked, rubbing his neck to reassure himself it wasn’t torn open.

Spike rolled his eyes. “Unless the chip can suddenly reset time, no, I don’t think so.”

“Oh my God, what am I wearing?”

Harmony was staring down at herself, gaping.

“It’s called a dress, you silly bint. And it’s older than I am, however that’s bloody possible.”

Harmony began smoothing the satin of her dress appreciatively. “I am sooo digging this.”

“You fancy the bonnet, too, pet?”

Her hands flew up to her head and felt the edges of the bonnet. “Ew, I’m wearing a bonnet? What is this, Little House on the Prairie?”

“No,” Spike said with dripping disdain, “wrong time and wrong soddin’ continent.”

“So where—and when—are we then, Mr. Poofy Hair?”

“What?” Spike immediate reached for his hair and felt it. Harmony, tearing her gaze from the lustrous blue satin of her dress, also took a second look.

“Oh, Blondie Bear,” she clapped her hands happily, “it’s so cute!”

Thick, loose curls. That’s what he felt. Pulling a lock of it straight, he checked the color. Still white, thank god.

“This is a spell,” Xander abruptly said.

Spike released the strand and let it spring back into its soft curling form sourly. With horror, he realized he could quite vividly imagine what he looked like, and it wasn’t terribly far from how he’d appeared when he’d died, minus his natural hair color, glasses, and pathetic demeanor. “Yeah, you finally figure that out, Einstein?”

“Okay, who started it?” Xander looked between the two of them.

“Don’t look at me,” Harmony said, frowning, “I was just getting my nails done. Or…I think I was?”

“Well I didn’t bloody well do it.” Spike glared accusingly at Xander, who held his hands up.

“Neither did I!”

“You might not’ve thought you did, mate, but you’re not winnin’ any prizes for extraordinary wit.”

“Oh, you’re one to talk!”

“I’m impatient, not stupid,” Spike retorted.

“You know, where’s a sharp pointy stick,” Xander searched the cabin quickly, “I think I might test out the whole time-rewind thing, see if it works for you the same it does for me. Fingers crossed it won’t.”

There was a thump against the roof of the carriage. Xander jumped and Harmony squeaked.

“Mr. Bingley, we’ve come to Netherfield Park!”

Spike stilled, a chill, one colder than the death that already gripped him, shooting into his stomach.

“Oh bollocks.”

Xander’s head swiveled to face him again. “’Bollocks’? Why bollocks? You know what’s going on?”

Spike pressed his face into his hands.

“Maybe," he answered forlornly between his fingers. "Dunno how, but I think we’re stuck in—”

“Pride and Prejudice!” Harmony squealed with delight, clapping her hands and giggling with childlike glee.

Xander looked between her overjoyed reaction and Spike’s sagging shoulders.

“Huh?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thought I'd add one more chapter tonight to let everyone get a peek at the rest of the characters and the setting in general. Hope it satisfies!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back with another chapter! My goal is to post once a week, though I might be delayed by a day or two from time to time because of RL activities. But if anyone's wondering what to expect, that's the schedule I hope to keep.
> 
> Thank you so much to the people who have commented, left kudos, and subscribed to my work so far! I hope the story continues to entertain and delight!

While Buffy had left the house feeling angry, despondent, and totally annoyed at the maids for insisting they help her change (as if she couldn’t dress herself!), some of those stormy emotions drained away as she wandered the fields behind Longbourn. Everything was green and spring-like, the air damp and crisp. Maybe a little chilly, she admitted, pulling the shawl around her shoulders closer, but undeniably beautiful.

She still couldn’t quite wrap her head around what her mother had said. They’d all been sucked into this bizarrely charming English manor where women wore dresses with waistlines under their boobs and men had to make all the introductions, and her mother wanted one of them to get married to a total—albeit rich—stranger?

At the same time, it all felt very natural. Wasn’t that just the course of life? Not that she was interested in getting married anytime soon. Certainly not to somebody she’d never met. If she ever got married, it’d need to be to someone just as smart as she, but also humble and good-humored and decently handsome…

Buffy stopped abruptly in her tracks, a mortified expression crossing her face. God, what was she thinking? Where had that come from?

They had to figure this out. And fast.

“Buffy!”

Buffy turned to see Dawn trotting across the field toward her, her skirts hitched up so she could move faster.

“Hi Dawnie,” Buffy said wearily. “I thought you were gonna hang out with Anya.”

Dawn caught up, her cheeks and nose flushed from exercise. “Yeah, I was, but she got into all this boring history stuff.”

“History’s not that boring,” Buffy answered. She’d fallen asleep in history a lot in high school, but it wasn’t for lack of knowledge or interest. She was exposed to it plenty while combing through Giles’ collections looking for lore on demons and vampires.

“It wasn’t at first,” Dawn agreed, falling in step with her sister, “not when she was talking about all the ways she punished men for hurting women. But then she started talking about seating arrangements and how someone had made her mad one time with where they placed her, and it just went downhill from there.”

“Sounds like Anya.” Buffy smiled slightly. “Did you learn anything useful?”

Dawn shrugged. “I dunno. Just that pointed lace trim is all the rage and people get around by horse, I guess.”

“Super helpful.” Buffy sighed in frustration. “I keep trying to remember what I was doing before this, but it’s all a smear.”

When Dawn didn’t answer, she glanced over. Her sister’s face was blank, but Buffy knew the look in her eyes. She was frightened.

“Hey,” she wrapped her arm around her sister’s shoulders and pulled her into her side, “it’s gonna be okay. We’ll get through it. We always do.”

Dawn leaned into her sister’s embrace. “I know.” Her voice sounded small, and Buffy’s stomach twisted to hear her baby sister so worried. “Do you think Giles’ll be able to figure it out?”

“Absolutely. He always does.”

***

 

“Oh bugger,” Giles growled, pushing another book back into place on its shelf. There was nothing in the study even remotely helpful, and certainly none of his books were there. He had found several wonderful first editions from noteworthy authors and an array of marvelous volumes on botany and animal husbandry, but not one mention of magic or demons, not even a pamphlet.

Realizing with a sinking feeling that he wasn’t going to get anywhere searching his study, he resolved to set out and meet the neighbors.

He was careful to avoid Joyce as he changed into something more respectable and slipped out of the house. She had cornered him after the girls had been dismissed from the table and once again insisted that he go speak to Mr. Bingley about their daughters.

Their daughters? Giles grimaced as he pulled himself up into the saddle of his horse. The whole thing was absolutely preposterous. Whatever magic this was, it needed to be reversed immediately. Though, he admitted to himself begrudgingly, it was nice to be back in his home country, even if it did appear to be just shy of two centuries younger than the one he’d left.

Without really thinking about it, Giles navigated the country roads and found himself riding up to a splendid English mansion.

It was far grander than Longbourn, more stately in stature and larger in scope. A boy came to take his horse and a doorman received him as he approached the entrance. In a flurry of decorum, he was escorted into the house and shown to a beautifully appointed sitting room.

“Mr. Bingley will see you shortly,” a man Giles recognized as a butler said, bowing before he disappeared back into the corridor.

Giles blinked owlishly at the receding figure, then turned to take in the room. Wide windows along two walls let in the light freely, while the two interior walls were hung with paintings and portraits of various sizes. He was contemplating a landscape the size of a door hung above the room’s fireplace when he heard a familiar voice speak behind him.

“Giles?”

He turned to see Xander standing in the sitting room doorway, his brown eyes large and his jaw slack.

“Xander!” Giles sighed in explosive relief. “You’re here too!”

“And he’s not the only one, mate.” A pale hand thrust roughly into the spot between Xander’s shoulder blades, shoving him further into the room. From behind him stepped Spike, looking ill-tempered as ever.

Seeing Spike made the Watcher’s chest tighten with apprehension and irritation in equal measure. Adjusted his glasses, Giles regarded them warily as they approached. Xander was dressed as any Regency gentleman would be, his hair tousled in such a way that it actually looked stylish for once. But his shoulders were still rolled forward, and he moved with the same awkward gait he always had, making him look rather out of place.

Spike, on the other hand, stood straight as an arrow and strode in with confident ease. Giles was struck by the fact that, while Spike’s expression conveyed a degree of discomfort, he generally seemed to fit in quite well with their surroundings. Not surprising, Giles supposed, remembering that William the Bloody had been re-born to death in 1880. While this was clearly not his native time, he was still better suited to it than the rest of them.

“Your chip,” Giles observed cautiously, noting how Xander scowled and flexed his shoulders.

Spike shrugged lazily. “Don’t work here, wherever here is.” Suddenly he grinned. “Can walk in the sunlight too.”

A sick pit opened in Giles’ stomach and he took a step back.

“Don’t worry, Watcher, I can’t do anythin’,” the vampire reported, suddenly glum. “Already tried; stupid place won’t let me feed.”

“You keep calling this a place,” Giles said carefully, still keeping his distance, “where is it exactly you think we are?”

Spike’s lips pursed. When he didn’t answer immediately, Giles turned his attention to Xander.

He held his hands up. “Hey, don’t ask me. I don’t wanna be the one to say the crazy thing.”

“Well it should be bloody obvious, innit?” Spike snapped, glaring pointedly at the Watcher. “C’mon, you have to’ve figured it out by now.”

When Giles continued to stare at him blankly, Spike sighed and rolled his eyes.

“He’s Mr. Bingley. I’m apparently Mr. Darcy. This is Netherfield Park, for Christ’s sake! An’ if I had to guess, I’d bet good dosh you’re Mr. Bennet, right? Don’t tell me you don’t know you’re nineteenth century lit, Watcher.”

Giles frowned and fiddled with his glasses. “I—I do, it’s just I can’t think…”

Across the room from him, Spike snorted. “God, this’s gonna be one of those things, innit? Because I’m a vamp and you’re a bloody mortal.”

“Ooo, ooo, can I tell him?”

Another familiar figure appeared in the doorway.

“Harmony?” Giles’ eyebrows rose in disbelief.

Spike chuckled humorlessly. “Miss Bingley, meet Mr. Bennet.”

Harmony did a happy twirl in her rose-colored satin gown as she entered the room.

“Oh my God, Mr. Giles, you would not believe how many dresses I have!”

Giles looked between the three of them, bewildered. “Could someone please explain what the hell is going on here?”

“Oh, oh, me!” Harmony raised her hand and hopped excitedly.

“You’re not in school anymore, Harm, you don’t have to ask permission to talk.” Spike paused, his face going blank. “Actually, never mind, keep doin’ that.”

Giles pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Yes, Harmony, please enlighten me. What is happening here?”

Harmony clasped her hands together in front of her chest, grinning from ear to ear.

“It’s just like the miniseries,” she began, her voice high with excitement. “Except my Blondie Bear is here instead of Colin Firth. We’re in Pride and Prejudice, silly!”

Giles couldn’t speak for a moment. Blinking rapidly, he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, did you just say we were in a miniseries?”

“More like the book,” Spike commented sullenly, plopping down onto a striped chaise-lounge. “Although the timing seems to be a bit off. Mr. Bingley meets an’ visits a few times with Mr. Bennet before returning to London to pick up Darcy. And there should be two Bingley sisters, not one.”

Giles fixed him with a wondering look.

Spike lifted his head off the chaise cushion. “What? I’m from the soddin’ nineteenth century, a’right? We didn’t have the telly back then to amuse us.”

“No, I suppose you didn’t,” Giles answered simply, still watching the vampire closely.

Spike leaned his head back again, though his blue eyes were narrowed into slits. “Anyway, way I figure it, it’s why we can’t drain dear old Xander here. Too off-script.”

“Didja hear that? He tried to drain me!” Xander cried, crossing his arms and glaring at Spike.

“But he didn’t,” Harmony chimed, “so everything’s okay!”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Xander mumbled crossly.

Spike sat up and pointed at Xander. “Hey, if we’re tattlin’ on each other, he tried to stake me when we got here.”

“Oh, both of you shut up,” Giles snapped. They did, Xander leaning against the mantle of the fireplace in the room, Spike subsiding onto the couch again.

The beleaguered Watcher paced for a few minutes, focusing on his breathing. Finally he stopped and turned back to them.

“What could do something like this?”

Spike shrugged. “Dunno. A few things, maybe. Gotta be pretty bloody powerful, though. Nothin’ I’d wanna mess with.”

“Helpful, as always.” Giles tapped his mouth with his index finger thoughtfully. “So, we aren’t back in time. Not really.”

“Nope,” Spike answered from where he lay. “I’m guessin’ dream or pocket dimension.”

“Maybe something related to a vengeance demon?” Xander offered in a meek voice.

“Or an asphyx. Or some other soddin’ wish-granter. Or somethin’ that can warp reality. Take your bloody pick.”

Giles sighed heavily. “It would help immensely if we knew what initiated the spell.”

“Don’t you know, Watcher-man?” Xander asked, squirming uncomfortably.

“Alas, I don’t. If I did, I’d be doing my best to dissolve this whole ridiculous charade.”

“Don’t you dare!” Harmony cried, stomping her foot. “What’s wrong with you guys? This is like one of the best romances ever put on TV, and you just wanna walk out of it?”

“Hate to break it to you, Harm, but if you’re Miss Bingley, you don’t get in on any of the lovey-dovey, namby-pamby ‘romance’ crap. You don’t get a damn thing outta the whole bloody mess, ‘cept makin’ googly eyes at yours truly.”

As his words sank in, a stricken expression began to cross Harmony’s face. At the same time, a thought occurred to Spike. He sat up.

“Wait a minute. Who else’s here? It’s not just you, is it Watcher?”

“No,” Giles replied, clearly catching up. “There’s also Buffy and Dawn, Joyce, Anya, Tara and Cordelia. So far, anyway.”

“Anya’s here? And—and Cordy’s back?” Xander asked, surprised. Then he crossed his arms tighter. “What’re their roles?”

Giles tilted his head back, fixing his gaze on the ceiling.

“Well, let’s see. I believe Cordelia is playing the part of Kitty Bennet, and Anya is Jane.”

“And the others?” Spike prompted, his voice low and urgent.

“Joyce is, naturally, Mrs. Bennet,” Giles began, a slight flush rising in his cheeks, “and—um—well, Tara is Mary, Dawn is Lydia, and Buffy—”

“Is Elizabeth,” Spike finished, his face growing stiff. The muscles in his jaw jumped as he clenched his teeth.

“Oh good God.” Giles swept the glasses from his face and began to polish their lenses. “Please don’t tell me this is going to be like Willow’s horrid spell all over again.”

“Willow!” Xander straightened from his slouch. “Is she here?”

“I don’t know,” Giles began as Spike swiftly rose, “and—wherever are you going?”

“To get a bloody drink,” Spike barked as he stormed from the room, “bound to be some soddin’ alcohol in the study.”

“Bring me a glass!” Giles called after him. God, he needed one. Just the memory of the sound of his charge and Spike smacking lips made him feel nauseated.

There was no reply.

Giles finally slumped into an armchair.

“Well?” Xander asked, slapping his hands together, “what’s the game plan?”

The Watcher covered his eyes. “There isn’t one yet, Xander. Without knowing the initiating factor, we can’t very well begin trying to reverse this.”

“What? No, that can’t be it!” Xander spread his arms wide. “What are we supposed to do until we figure that out?”

Harmony spoke again, her voice tight.

“There’s a dance that’s supposed to happen soon. We should go to that.”

Xander shook his head with a bewildered look. “Why?”

“Because what else do we have to do?” she snapped angrily. “None of us knows how this started so we probably can’t help. And—and I don’t care if my part sucks, if we’re going to be here I wanna go to the dance and have fun!”

“That’s a stupid idea,” Xander retorted, making a face.

“Well you’re just stupid!” Harmony shot back, glaring.

Xander strode briskly toward Giles. “Look, sign me up for whatever you need me to do. I’m game. I can’t take this place. Everything’s so delicate and the clothes are all tight and complicated and I have this really weird urge to drink tea and round up some dogs and go shoot birds while I’m here.”

“It’s the story tryin’ to keep you on track.” Spike reappeared, two tumblers of something amber in one hand, a decanter in the other, and a smoldering cigar stuck between his teeth. He passed one tumbler to Giles, who nodded wearily in thanks as he took it.

“I want one,” Xander pouted, watching as Giles swirled the glass expertly.

Spike spared him an irritated glance. “’S what I brought this for, mate,” he said around the cigar, handing the other tumbler to Xander. With his hand free, he opened the decanter and tossed the crystal stopper on a side table. Plucking the cigar from his lips, he raised the container.

“Cheers,” he sneered, before taking a big swig. Giles echoed the motion, though said nothing as he sipped from his own glass.

Xander sampled his drink and made a pleasantly surprised face. After taking another, deeper drink, he turned back to Spike.

“Wait, you said something about the story?”

Spike took a long drag off his cigar, his gaze far away and moody.

“Yeah,” he began, smoke jetting out between his lips as he spoke, “I figure if we can’t kill each other, it stands to reason there’s a purpose for that. We’re actin’ out Pride and Prejudice, yeah? Whatever’s doin’ this wants us to do it right, or mostly right anyway. When we do somethin’ wrong, it just resets like it did in the chaise and four or the entrance hall, when you tried to dust me.”

“’Chaise and four’?”

Spike’s shoulders sagged. “The bloody carriage, you nit. Context clues, use ‘em.”

Harmony appeared at Spike’s side, plucking the decanter from him and pressing it to her lips.

“Hey!”

She shoved it back into his chest and wiped her mouth. “Okay, that’s cool and all, but what about the dance? Spikey, I want to goooo.”

Spike stuck the cigar between his teeth and gripped her shoulder tightly to make her stop her shuddering little dance.

“And you’ll get to, my pet,” he growled around the cigar. “Prolly couldn’t avoid the bloody thing even if we tied ourselves to the chairs.”

“We could always try,” Giles muttered hopefully before sipping more of his brandy.

“Look, now you know what we know. Why don’t you sod on off back to Longbourn.” Spike took another furious draw from his cigar. “Find somethin’ useful to do there, if you can. Not doin’ us any good here.”

“Don’t mind if I do.” Giles tipped the tumbler back, letting the remainder of the liquid slide down his throat. It carved a trail of blazing warmth into his core.

Xander grabbed his shoulder as he stood to leave.

“C’mon, Giles, don’t go. Don’t leave me with,” he glanced between Spike and Harmony, “team Blonde-and-Bitey.”

“It would seem they can’t hurt you,” Giles sighed, straightening his coat. “And—I can’t believe I’m saying this—Spike’s right. I need to get back to the girls and tell them what I’ve learned. Maybe if we put our heads together, we can figure something out.”

“I’m coming with you,” Xander said, placing his drink on the mantle.

“You’re welcome to try,” Spike commented dryly, “but you won’t be able to.”

“Shut up, Spike.”

Spike took the cigar from his mouth, his face hardening. “Make me, Harris.”

“Uh, Giles,” Harris licked his lips anxiously, not taking his eyes from Spike, “sure he can’t kill me, but I think the rules might be a little fuzzy around bruises and bones.”

“’S long as I don’t break any…” A cold smile crossed Spike’s face, and he chuckled softly.

“Could you two simply behave yourselves for a day?” Giles scoffed. “I’m going back to Longbourn. I’ll write you if I find anything out. Hopefully we can undo this mess before the plot progresses any further.”

“I bloody well hope so,” Spike said, raising the decanter and swigging from it, “took me days to wash Slayer-taste out o’ my mouth last time somethin’ like this happened.”

“Oh, cheer up, Spikey” Harmony said, her mouth bending into a cheerful smile, “Darcy and Elizabeth don’t kiss ‘til the end. We’ll be gone long before then.”

“Yeah, well, Darcy had to do all kinds’ve degradin’ things for that stuck-up bint before that.”

“Ooo, that sounds interesting.” Xander perked up. “Tell me about that.”

“Sod off.”

“I will!” Harmony volunteered, bouncing on her toes. “I’ll tell!”

“You bloody will not!”

“Goodbye, children,” Giles sighed, stepping past them as they continued to squabble. He could hear them arguing until the doors of Netherfield closed behind him.

 

***

 

“Well shit,” Anya said, breaking the silence following Giles’ proclamation, “I shoulda guessed that.”

No one else spoke for a long minute. The ticking of a clock on the wall filled the silence as they tried to wrap their heads around the concept of living in a book. It proved a surprisingly slippery idea, they were all finding. Giles had found it hard to recall what Spike had told him when he arrived home, and even as he was reporting it to the women sitting around him it tried to fade from his mind.

Sitting in her corner of Longbourn’s drawing room, Buffy chewed her lower lip, her eyes fixed on the hardwood floor. There was something about the whole thing that rang true to her. A memory swam just out of reach; she was in a library, and there was a librarian, and a red-bound book…

Joyce, who had been working on embroidering by the fading daylight, set her handiwork down and folded her hands in her lap.

“Well, I’m not worried. It’s a good book with a happy ending.”

Dawn lifted her head from where she’d laid it on Tara’s lap. “How does it end?”

“It—” Joyce paused, her expression becoming vacant. “You know, I guess I’ve forgotten.”

“Spike seemed to have no trouble recalling certain details,” Giles commented, swirling a glass of scotch as he leaned against the mantle and warmed himself by the low flames playing behind the grate. “He seemed to think it was because he’s demonic. I suppose it’d be too much to hope you’re fairing better than the rest of us, Anya?”

“Yep.” Anya shrugged. “Can’t remember the book. Honestly I’m not sure I ever read it. But I do remember the time period, so that should help!”

“Buffy, what about you?”

Buffy squinted at the curling patterns woven into the rug stretched between the couches and chairs. They reminded her of something, but what?

“Buffy?”

All at once the image of the book with ivy engravings popped into her head, along with the smiling, way-too-sparkly-to-be-human eyes of the librarian.

She stood, the shawl draped across her lap slipping to the floor.

“I need to get some air,” she said abruptly.

“It’s almost dark,” Cordelia objected, “and who knows what other weirdness exists here?”

“I’ll be fine.” Buffy strode out of the room, fixing the memory of the book in her mind’s eye as she headed for the back door.

Once she was outside, she ran, pausing only to grab a shovel leaning against the side of an out-building. She sprinted into the middle of the field behind Longbourn, her slippers becoming slick and cold with evening dew. When she was far enough away from the manor, she stopped and shouted, “Alright you evil demon-librarian, show yourself!”

The chirping of crickets and the hoot of a waking owl answered her.

“I know you can hear me,” Buffy continued, circling around and searching for any sign of movement in the fields around her or the woods beyond them. “This is so not funny!”

“But it’s so much fun,” came a smooth voice behind her.

She whirled. Another woman was standing there, less than five feet away. She was young, perhaps Buffy’s age, wearing the same kind of empire-waisted gown the girls had been dressed in all day. But as she stepped nearer, her eyes sparkled unnaturally.

Buffy’s grip on the handle tightened. “Fun, huh? You know what I find fun? Shopping. Getting my nails done. Bronze-ing it with my friends. Slaying. Speaking of which, since you’re here, let’s have some fun together!”

She swung the shovel as hard as she could at the woman with sparkling eyes—and almost lost her balance entirely as it connected with nothing, lurching straight through the place where the blade of the shovel should have met her neck. Buffy staggered sideways, letting go of the handle to keep the shovel’s weight and momentum from pulling her completely down. It flew her hands, landing in the grass some distance away with a dull thud.

The woman laughed merrily. “You can’t harm me here, Miss Summers. I make the rules you see.”

“What are you?” Buffy growled, regaining her footing and taking a wary step back. “What kind of demon?”

She made a face. “Demon? Heavens no, I’m not a demon!”

“Then what are you?” Buffy looked for any other weapons within easy reach. There were some rocks on the ground, and there was also the ribbon belt around her waist, holding her dressing gown closed. Neither would be very effective, obviously, but Buffy always liked to know her options.

“Don’t you recall my nametag?”

Buffy stilled. “’Miss Muse’? Is that supposed to mean something?”

“You could ask your Watcher,” Ms. Muse said coyly, smiling. “He’d know.”

“I’m asking you. What is this place, and how do we leave?”

Ms. Muse’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Leave? But you’ve barely even started!”

“Look, lady or whatever you are, my patience is about as thin as the silk of this ridiculous wrapper thing. Tell me what’s going on!”

Ms. Muse pursed her lips. “The story, girl. You’ve barely started the story. And I can tell just by looking at you that you’ve never finished a book in your life. I thought I’d help you with that.”

Buffy’s mouth dropped open. “You thought you’d help by putting me and my friends inside one?”

“Naturally.” She winked, a sly quirk curling the corner of her mouth up. “I can tell you’re more the doing-type. What you need is a truly immersive experience—and a vacation, if I might be so bold. You’re all used up; all the creativity drained from you from overexertion. It’s a shame!”

“Lady, I’m plenty creative,” Buffy said, pulling the ribbon from the dressing gown wrapped around her chemise, “when it comes to killing things like you. And you’re giving me plenty of inspiration.”

Contrary to its intended purpose, that seemed to make the woman brighten. “Oh, wonderful! Just imagine how you’ll feel by the end, then!”

“Okay, I don’t know how to say this nicely and I don’t really feel like trying anyway: send us home. Now.”

She gave Buffy an arch look. “I don’t know how to state this more plainly: the only way out is to finish the book.”

Buffy gritted her teeth. “I don’t even know how the book goes! How do I know what I need to do to make it end?”

The woman shrugged. “You’ll figure it out. It’ll even come naturally to you, if you let it.”

“I really don’t like anything screwing around with my or my friends’ minds.”

“Oh, come now, don’t be so dull.” The woman frowned, her patience clearly waning. “Everyone needs to escape sometimes, to be someone else for a while. All of this is harmless! Just relax and follow the story.”

Buffy remembered something Giles had mentioned when he returned from Netherfield Park.

“Spike said you’d changed some things already. Can’t you change the plot to make it shorter? Or even make it end right now?”

Ms. Muse nodded. “Sure. But I won’t.”

“You’ve already changed things though!”

“Well, I had to tweak a few things, reimagine the plot a bit. You keep very strange company. But I think the result will be just right for you.”

Buffy started to feel desperate. “If this is all for me, fine. Keep me here. But let my friends get back to Sunnydale.”

“Miss Summers,” Ms. Muse clicked her tongue in disappointment, “what did I tell you? Good friends and good books: …?”

“There’s no better combination,” Buffy finished, her voice low and horrified.

She folded her hands in front of her with a triumphant smile. “Exactly.”

So, she wasn’t going to let them go. Any of them. The impact of that revelation struck Buffy like a sledgehammer, forcing all the air from her chest and—briefly—the fight from her bones. She stood, the ribbon she had coiled taut between her hands slacking and slipping from her fingers.

“That’s it,” cooed Ms. Muse, “let it go. If you want your freedom so badly, just finish the story.”

And then she was gone, disappearing into the night air as if she’d never been there at all. Buffy tried calling her name a few times, screaming that they weren’t done talking, but it was no use. She didn’t reappear.

Slowly, Buffy made her way back to the house, pulling the silk wrapper tight around her chemise to ward off the chill. Giles was waiting for her in the doorway, a lantern held up against the now fully-descended night.

“Oh, thank God,” Giles sighed upon seeing her, “I thought I heard you screaming. Where were you, Buffy?”

“Giles…” she paused, pulling the dressing gown tighter around her and looking at her ruined slippers, “does the name ‘Miss Muse’ mean anything to you?”

He started to say no, but his face froze midway through the word. Then the color drained from his cheeks.

“Oh. Oh, good heavens, no.”

“That bad?”

He closed his eyes and lowered the lantern.

“Buffy, please don’t tell me you’ve attracted a muse.”

She shrugged and smiled sheepishly. “What if I did?”

“Then I’d say we are all very, completely, and utterly screwed.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm starting back to work this week, so my schedule is changing. I was originally going to post every Wednesday, but it may shift around each week a day or two in either direction. Just giving you guys a heads up!
> 
> Thank you to everyone who has left kudos! It makes me so very happy to see that you are having fun reading this and want to stick around and see where it goes!

In the privacy of Giles’ study, the Watcher glared across his desk at the Slayer.

“A muse, of all things.” He bit back a curse. “Buffy, this is bad.”

“I thought muses were supposed to, I dunno, like whisper stuff to painters and give them ideas, not create whole worlds out of nothing.”

He sighed and settled into the chair behind his desk. “Yes, well, usually that’s all they do. But sometimes they get ideas in their heads.” He gave her a sidelong look. “And when that happens, their power is nigh unlimited.”

"Kinda like my mom when she wants to ground me?"

Giles' lips thinned, clearly not amused by her attempt at humor. The peppy smile on Buffy's face faded and her gaze fell to her lap.

“I’m sorry, Giles.” She plucked at the lace trimming her dressing gown. “I didn’t know.”

The stiffness in his shoulders softened. “I know, Buffy. There are just so many creatures in the worlds... I’ll never be able to teach you about all of them. And when a muse sets their sights on someone, they’re quite impossible to refuse. Advanced hypnotism and such.” He picked up his glass, which he had refilled with scotch, and sipped from it. “So you spoke to her?”

“Yep.” Buffy recalled the muse’s eyes shimmering unnaturally in the low light and grimaced.

“Well that’s good. You’ve got a line of communication with her, at least.” He took another sip. “Did you ask what she wanted?”

“That’s easy. She wants me to ‘finish the book’.”

Giles glanced up at her. “That’s all?” When Buffy nodded, he smiled slightly. “Well that seems simple enough.”

“Simple. I like the sound of that.” Buffy nodded decisively. “Okay, so how does Pride and Prejudice go? How does it end?”

“Oh, it’s a lot of social back and forth, I think.”

“Social drama. Check. Nothing I can’t handle. But how does it end, Giles?”

He started to reply, but his mouth fell slack. “It seems I—I’ve quite forgotten.”

“Great!” Buffy stood and started to pace. “That’s just great. Nobody can remember how to get where we need to go, and every minute we waste here may be a minute we’re gone from Sunnydale.”

“I doubt time moves here the same way it does in Sunnydale,” Giles replied. “Muses aren’t like some of the fae or other magical creatures that steal humans away for decades before returning them. The longest I’ve heard of a person being spirited away by a muse was for two days.”

“Well at least there’s that, but you’re forgetting, Giles." She stopped and braced her hands on his desk. "I have to be on patrol! I’m Slayer Numero Uno, the one and only now that... I'm the Slayer. When I’m not around, people die and the world tries to fall apart in a dozen different ways! That’s what happens when I take vacations.”

Giles’ brow furrowed as he absorbed what she said. “Yes, of course, you’re quite right. How could I forget?”

“See? There’s that too!” Buffy ran her hands through her hair. “Giles, we haven’t been here more than a day and there are times I don’t know which is the real world, here or Sunnydale!”

“I think you’re right, Buffy. We need to get this resolved as quickly as possible.”

“So what do we do?”

Giles stared silently into his glass, observing the legs of his scotch as he contemplated the answer.

“I think, my dear, we need to go to a dance.”

 

~*~

 

In spite of the huge step back in time and the bizarre circumstances, Spike was beginning to like this place. After the Watcher had left and Harmony started gossiping with Xander, Spike had gone for a stroll around Netherfield’s park. The sun fell across his face with warm clarity, filling the world with bright golden light and illuminating the stunning green of the leaves and grasses. Spike had only known the cold touch of moonlight for over a century and the washed-out, silver hues of night. He’d walked under the sun briefly when he was in possession of the Gem of Amara, but he’d had more on his mind than stopping to smell the literal and proverbial roses. He’d forgotten how vividly colorful summer flowers could be. He had the brief impulse to stoop and pluck a bouquet of wildflowers, but recalled himself suddenly and shuddered. Where the buggering hell had that come from? He’d turned to head back inside after that, refusing to examine the lark too closely.

Xander was chatting with two of the servants in the sitting room when he returned. To Spike the household staff looked less than real, strangely faded somehow, hollow. It seemed they could carry on a conversation well enough, but only if it was a topic they could understand. When Xander started talking about Nintendo 64 games, one of the servants smiled vacantly while the other seemed actively uncomfortable.

While it was mildly amusing to watch Xander make an ass out of himself talking to magical automatons, Spike lost interest after the first few minutes. Searching for other entertainment, he went looking for Harmony.

She was sitting in her room, combing out her golden blonde hair in front of the boudoir, staring happily at all the fine dresses she now owned. Looking at her in her evening gown, the soft curves of her breasts and hips tantalizing beneath the drape of the thin fabric, Spike felt the hot stir of desire.

“They look good on you, pet,” Spike said, leaning against the door frame.

Harmony started and turned to glare at him. “Spike, don’t do that, you—”

“Scared you?” He smirked.

She smiled archly at him, her eyes lingering on his mouth for a few moments before she glanced back at the dresses.

“You really think they look good on me? I mean, of course they look good on me, but do you think they look, like, amazing?”

He pushed himself off the door frame and approached her with rolling, subtly swaggering steps.

“I do,” he purred softly. He gathered her hair in his hand, feeling the silkiness of it in his palm. Thrusting it closer to her scalp, he curled his fingers and tugged slightly. Harmony released a soft gasp of pleasure.

“But nothing can match the artful beauty of the human body laid bare.”

“Oh Spikey,” Harmony breathed, dropping the comb to the ground, “that’s so poetic!”

Spike had been leaning forward but froze halfway to her face. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing. Kiss me,” she gasped, grabbing his face and pulling him in.

That was when he felt the yanking sensation in his middle again. There was a brief, violent tug centering around his abdomen and the room distorted momentarily. When it settled, he found himself standing in the doorway once more.

Harmony turned to look over her shoulder. The comb was back in her hand, and everything was exactly as it was when he’d first arrived.

“What just happened?”

An even more nauseous feeling settled into his stomach.

“No,” he whispered, horrified, “oh God, no.”

“What? What is it, Boo Boo?”

“You’ve got to be bloody kidding!” he yelled, kicking the door angrily. His foot punched a hole through the bottom half of it.

Harmony sprang up, jumping away from the rain of splinters his outburst flung her way. “Spike! Stop wrecking my room!”

He turned to her, wild-eyed. “Don’t you see, you stupid chit? I’m Mr. bloody Darcy, and since it isn’t written that I—since we’re in a soddin’ nineteenth century romance, I can’t—” He kicked the door again, sending it off its hinges. There was another dizzying distortion, and the door reappeared back on its hinges, completely whole. He made a strangled sound in his throat and leaned heavily against the door frame, running his hands through his period-appropriate hair.

“God, can’t drink people, can’t shag…what’s a vamp to do, Harm? What’s left?”

“Oh, Blondie Bear.” Harmony swooped over and hugged Spike. When he let his arms drop to his sides, she stroked his hair and cooed soft sweet nothings.

“Why couldn’t we ‘ave gotten stuck in a bloody Harlequin romance? Why’d it have t’be bloody Pride and Prejudice? Why not Passions? Christ, there ain’t no telly here either! This really is Hell!”

Harmony shushed him, rubbing his back. At first he stayed limp in her arms, his head resting on her shoulder as he stared emptily into her bedroom. But then anger replaced the sick empty pit in his stomach. Of course something like this would happen, just one more punt in the game of kick-the-Spike. Just his bloody luck.

He pushed Harmony roughly away.

“Spike, wait!” Harmony said, grabbing for him. He shook her hands from his arm.

“Sod off, Harm. I don’t bloody need you or your idiotic sympathy. Just stay away from me, got it?”

He stormed down the corridor without sparing her a second glance.

 

*

 

It didn’t come as a terrible surprise to Spike that they’d gotten caught up in a muse’s sick fantasy, not when he really thought about it. Giles had sent a letter early that morning, and while it had been presented to Xander at breakfast, Spike had plucked it from his hands and torn it open himself.

“What now?” Xander asked. He’d tucked away two plates of the breakfast fare brought out to them and seemed to be considering eating more. Harmony was likewise enjoying the spread and being waited on by the servants.

Spike barely touched his food. He’d barely slept, too, partly because he was miserable, but also because he wasn’t used to sleeping at night. It just seemed wrong, like the rest of this whole bloody place.

“It says in the letter what we do next. Or are you so bloody illiterate you can’t even understand a letter that was read to you?”

“Ha ha, very funny,” Xander sneered. “You know you read half of it as ‘blah blah blah’, right? You might’ve left out important details.”

Spike snorted. “I’m tellin’ you, most of what that dumpy old Watcher wrote was filler. But I’ll give you a refresher: finish the story, leave this god-awful Hell dimension. Not finishing equals not leaving.”

“Pride and Prejudice is in a Hell dimension?” Harmony scrunched her nose up. “That doesn’t sound right.”

“This isn’t actually a Hell dimension, you daft woman, and it’s not really Pride and Prejudice, either. It’s some bloody muse chippy’s little game!”

Harmony dropped her utensils on the table and wheeled on Spike.

“Stop talking to me like that! It’s not my fault you can’t get it up here!”

“Can’t get it—that’s not the problem, Harm!”

“I’m sorry, rewind that: Spike can’t get it up?” Xander grinned with delight.

“Oh, bloody hell, it’s not that,” Spike growled defensively, “the story won’t let me do anythin’ unless it fits the soddin’ plot.”

Xander happily cut into another sausage and speared it with his fork. “And, uh, do you ever get to do anything in this book?” He waggled his eyebrows. “It’s all old-timey, so I’m guessing not.”

“No, but neither do you.”

Xander’s face fell. “Oh god. We gotta get outta here.”

Harmony rolled her eyes. “As if you had a very active sex-life before this.”

“That’s not the point!” he squawked. “And you know what, I did have a good sex life. Anya and I have sex all the time back in Sunnydale! But if it’s totally against the rules of reality here…” He shook his head, horrified. “We gotta finish this book.”

“Cheers to that,” Spike mumbled, lifting the glass of wine that accompanied his breakfast. He’d drank all the brandy the night before and sent a servant to buy more today, along with a list of other spirits.

“So how do we do it?”

“Pardon?”

“How do we end the book?”

Spike fixed Harmony with a flat look. “I thought you told this wanker everythin’?”

Harmony shrugged. “I did!”

Spike rolled his eyes. “Oh good, they forget even when they’re told. Bloody humans.” He sighed. “Look, Watcher-man writes about the next step.” He tossed the opened letter across to Xander. “Read it yourself. See if anythin’ sticks in that mush between your ears this time.”

Xander set to it. Harmony pointedly ignored Spike as she continued to clean her plate. Spike’s own stomach rumbled, but it wasn’t bread and butter he was hungry for.

He glanced across at one of the servants. His chip wasn’t working; maybe he could eat one of them? But the longer he looked, the more he sensed they wouldn’t satisfy him. They weren’t really living. He wasn’t even sure they had blood, or that they could be hurt. He’d have to try it later.

The hunger gnawed at him as he gripped his wineglass. Another reason to get out of this godforsaken place as quickly as vampirically possible.

When he finally raised the wine to his lips again, he almost spat. What was inside his fluted glass wasn’t wine; it was warm and thick and iron-rich. He felt the demon rise inside him, changing his face. Once the initial shock retreated, he drank deeply, feeling the life-giving blood warm his stomach.

Draining his glass, he laughed. “Harm, Harm, look at this!”

He demonstrated for her. What poured from the bottle was wine, as one might expect, but when he held the glass and thought violent, bloody, hungry thoughts, its contents changed.

“I’m like vampire Jesus!” he snickered. “The sacrilege is delicious!”

As it turned out, the trick worked for Harmony, too. Smiling with crimson lips and reddened teeth, they finished the bottle between them.

“Okay, I know what we do next,” Xander, who had been completely absorbed trying to decipher Giles’ tight scrawl, announced as Spike and Harmony ordered a nearby valet to bring them another bottle. “We have to go to this…country assembly thing tonight.”

Wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, he fixed Xander with a pointed look.

“Took you this long to get there, mate?”

“Hey, Giles writes like super tiny,” Xander said.

He finally glanced up and yelped as he caught sight of their faces.

“Why—why are you guys all fangy? And—and the blood…where did it…?”

“Magic.” Spike took the blood-reddened glass in his hand and smiled. “Makes sense, I s’pose. Bitch don’t want us to drain her set or players, but we still gotta feed. This fits her little play real nice-like.”

“Okay,” Xander said, pushing back from the table and rising, “that’s not super disturbing and gross in the extreme at all. I’m gonna go do something else someplace really far away for a while. You creeps have fun.”

“Don’t forget to be back in time to dress for the dance,” Spike called to Xander’s retreating back, “we got places to be tonight!”

Xander waved behind him without looking. “Yeah, yeah. Dances and dancing. As if high-school ones weren’t enough torture.”

Spike and Harmony glanced between them at his parting comment before bursting into fits of giggles.

“Didn’t you tell ‘im half the bloody book is dancin’?”

“I did,” Harmony squeaked between bouts of laughter, “but he forgot!”

“I take it back,” Spike said as a servant refilled his glass and he watched the contents thicken to blood, “this place might be a bit fun after all.”

 

~*~

 

Buffy and her sisters—or, her sister and friends, she reminded herself—had a hard time remembering to be upset with their general predicament as they dressed for the country assembly. Buffy wasn’t a huge fan of the empire-waistline but couldn’t deny that the muslin fabric of her chosen dress flowed around her legs pleasingly, and that she felt elegant wearing something so delicate. One of the servants helped her do her hair, and she was less enthusiastic when she fixed some weird corkscrew curls in a frame around Buffy’s face. From the sound of it, Cordelia was also less than happy with that fashion choice. Her voice echoed up the corridor as she tried to tell her servant to knock it off and do something different. But when she emerged later, she was wearing the same ringlets around her face as everybody else.

Buffy looked at the women arrayed around her. She had to admit that, strange curly hair-styles aside, they all looked remarkably beautiful. Particularly Tara, she thought; while she normally hid behind her hair and stuck to the corners of a room, here she stood tall, her locks drawn out of her face, fully revealing her soft-spoken but striking features. Anya, too, drew Buffy’s eye, less because she stood out and more because she blended in. She was right at home in these clothes, and her mannerisms had shifted to accommodate the occasion.

And then there was Dawn. Buffy’s baby sister walked down the stairs, and no one could help but make comment about how gorgeous she was. She seemed to glow, and Buffy felt a swell of pride when she looked at her.

They piled into the carriage together, a flurry of excited comments and laughter. Giles waved goodbye to them; he had elected to stay at Longbourn to comb through his library. The entire ride into town was filled with Cordelia and Dawn tittering behind their hands about something or other. She expected it from her younger sister, but Buffy thought it was strange how Cordelia kept lapsing into girlish giggles. She hadn’t seen her much since Cordelia’s departure to LA, but Buffy knew she’d grown a lot as a person since sophomore year of high school. But all that work seemed to be coming undone under the spell of the story.

And then they were at the assembly hall. It was loud inside, chock-full of people dancing and calling to each other over the lively music. Cordelia and Anya wasted no time ducking into the festivities, and Dawn was soon asked to dance by one of the men. Buffy tried to tell her not to go, but Dawn, grinning from ear to ear, was already following him into the crowd.

“Don’t worry, Buffy,” Tara said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “he’s not a real boy. It’s all a b-bit of harmless fun.”

“Yeah, you’re right.” Buffy straightened and smiled at the thought. “This is probably the only dance she’ll ever go to where she can’t get into trouble!”

“Buffy!”

Buffy turned to see a young, red-headed woman surging toward her. In a flash, her arms were wrapped tightly around Buffy’s shoulders.

“Willow!” she breathed, returning her fierce hug. Willow pulled herself away after a moment and lunged at Tara, folding her into an even tighter embrace. Tara pushed her face into Willow’s red hair, a tear slipping down her cheek as she clung to the slighter woman.

“I thought I was the only one!” Willow cried, finally stepping back from Tara, but keeping hold of one of her hands.

“Where have you been?” Tara asked, twining her fingers between Willow’s.

Willow shook her head. “With this—this family. They’re mine but…they’re not mine! It’s super confusing and I’ve been scared out of my skull!”

Buffy felt her chest constrict painfully. She’d had her mother and Giles and friends to keep her company, but Willow? She’d been stuck with a family of fake people who couldn’t begin to comprehend her questions, let alone answer them. Even imagining it for a moment made her skin crawl.

“Willow, do you remember the library?” Buffy asked. When she said she did vaguely, Buffy explained what had happened.

“So I’m—I’m Charlotte Lucas in the story,” she narrowed her eyes in intense concentration, “which means…it means…”

“Nobody’s been able to remember the book, honey,” Tara said, stroking the back of Willow’s hand softly. “Just b-bits and pieces.”

“Well that’s just low!” Willow objected, her mouth flattening to an indignant line. “That’s a whole bunch of hooey! This muse chick is a real—a real meanie!”

Buffy was about to respond when the assembly doors opened and a hush rippled throughout the room. She craned her neck to see over the heads of the people in front of her.

There, entering the assembly hall, was Xander. He strutted in, smoothing his green evening coat and preening like a peacock. A broad smile began to cross Buffy’s face, but it fell as soon as she saw who was with him.

Spike and Harmony.

Harmony was wearing a far nicer dress than any of the other women at the assembly. It was a deep crimson and shimmered with the luxurious luster of satin. She carried a feather fan in one hand and was flapping it coquettishly as she locked eyes with the men of the room.

Spike entered last. At first Buffy didn’t recognize him, though in retrospect she wondered why. Sure, he was lacking his customary black duster, but his hair was still peroxide white. It did lend him an entirely different look when it wasn’t slicked back against his skull, though. And the dark blue of his evening coat brought out the color of his eyes in stark relief. He surveyed the room coldly, hardly looking at anyone for more than a microsecond.

“Ugh, couldn’t Xander have left them at Netherfield?” Buffy mumbled. “How important can they even be anyway?”

“Buffy, Buffy!” Buffy’s mother hurried over as the room slowly began to liven up again. “Look, it’s Mr. Bingley!”

“That’s Xander, Mom.”

Joyce looked back at Xander and blinked. “Oh. I guess you’re right. But Buffy, doesn’t he look good tonight?”

“I guess.” Buffy smiled as she caught sight of Xander, who was still swaggering through the room and stopping to chat with groups of people.

“Oh, that’s my—my not-dad,” Willow said, pointing to the older gentleman at his side.

“Willow, I didn’t know you were here,” Joyce commented, suddenly noticing her.

Willow waved. “Hi, Mrs. Summers.”

“Anyway,” Joyce turned back to her daughter, “did I mention he’s rich?”

Buffy laughed this time. “Mom, snap out of it! Xander just moved out of his mom’s basement like last week. He’s not rich.”

“He is here,” Willow chimed. “He has a lot of money for this time-period. Five thousand a year.”

Buffy frowned. “Five thousand what a year?”

“Pounds. They’re like dollars, but, you know, British.”

“That’s not a lot to make in a year,” Buffy said dubiously.

“Remember the period,” Tara commented softly, “it’s a lot more than it sounds.”

“What’s his job?”

Willow shrugged. “To be a gentleman, I guess? He just has property and investments and stuff like that. That’s what makes all the money.”

“What?” Buffy glanced over at Xander, who was still making the rounds. “That’s not fair!”

“Oh, honey,” Joyce said, placing a hand on Buffy’s arm, “who’s that?”

Buffy gave her mother the flattest look she could possibly muster. “That’s Spike, Mom.”

“Spike!” Her mother’s eyes widened. “But he looks so different!”

“He’s also way rich,” Willow added, watching as Xander and his party circled closer, “like, total millionaire rich. My not-parents were talking about it on the way here.”

“Perfect.” Buffy crossed her arms. “He’s going to be even more annoying now. And what’s with Harmony?”

“She’s Mr. Bingley—I mean Xander’s—sister,” Joyce supplied, frowning. “Wait, is that right?”

“Why do they get to have all the money?” Buffy pouted.

“It’s just the story, Buffy,” Tara reassured her with a slight smile.

“And may I introduce Mrs. Bennet,” the gentleman that was Willow’s not-father said, breaking into their conversation as he led Xander, Spike, and Harmony around to them.

“Buffster! Wills!” Xander exclaimed. He held his arms out and made to hug them.

All of them felt a woozy shift as the scene reset before he could close his arms around their shoulders.

Spike made a tsking sound. “Stay on script, Harris.”

“Bite me, Spike,” he retorted. “Oh wait, you can’t.”

Spike rolled his eyes. “So original. You wound me.”

“Let’s not do that again,” Willow whimpered, rubbing her stomach. “Had that happen a lot when I was trying to run away.”

“You tried to run away, sweetie?” Tara squeezed Willow’s hand. Her girlfriend nodded grimly, but didn’t elaborate.

An expression of intense worry and pity crossed Tara’s face, while Buffy’s reflected deep guilt. She wanted to hug her friend so desperately, but what if that freaky stomach-churning thing happened again?

“Are you well, Charlotte?” Sir Lucas asked with concern.

“Yep, never better Dad.” Willow pasted a smile on her face and straightened. “Why don’t you finish introducing us.”

Sir Lucas brightened instantly. “Oh yes! Where was I? Mr. Bingley, Mr. Darcy, allow me to introduce Mrs. Bennet, Miss Elizabeth Bennet, Miss Mary Bennet—”

“Xander!”

The round of introductions paused again as Anya drifted over, the picture of elegance. Xander looked temporarily dumbstruck, his pupils dilating to drink in the vision that was his girlfriend. She smiled demurely at him.

“Ahn, wow,” he breathed, his mouth working comically to speak but stuttering over the words. “You look—you look—”

“I know,” she smiled smugly, clearly pleased by his dumbstruck reaction.

“I, er,” Sir Lucas began again, glancing around, “where would the other lovely Bennet ladies be at present?”

“Dawn and Cordelia are dancing,” Buffy explained, gesturing to the cleared area where a line dance was currently in full swing.

“Ah, I see.” Sir Lucas nodded.

There was a brief pause.

“Aren’t you gonna ask me to dance?” Anya asked at last with a sweet smile.

Xander’s cheeks reddened. “I—uh—I would, but I don’t know how.”

She held a hand out to him. “Well that needs to be fixed. Come on, I’ll show you.”

Buffy noticed Spike stiffen as he watched them join hands, apparently bracing himself for another wave of sickness. But nothing happened. He relaxed slightly as Anya led Xander away.

Buffy was debating asking him why he’d thought that would prompt a reset when Harmony grabbed his hand.

“You know these dances, right Spikey? Teach me!”

He started to protest, but it was too late. He was whisked away, and Buffy’s mood was restored to its previous good humor as she watched him suffer under Harmony’s insistent demands of “just one more dance, Blondie Bear.”

Willow, Tara, and Buffy stayed close to each other for most of the evening. None of them got to talk much with Xander; he was constantly getting pulled into another dance. Spike had extricated himself from Harmony after a couple (really long) numbers, but he always seemed to be on the opposite side of the room from their little trio.

Except for one occasion.

Willow and Buffy had been talking near the punch table when Spike and Xander headed over for refreshments. Buffy thought about moving closer to join them, but Willow stopped her.

“I think we’re just supposed to stand here,” Willow whispered, her eyebrows drawing together. “If we don’t, I think that whole room-spinny thing will happen, and if it does again I might puke.”

Buffy flashed her friend a sympathetic smile before returning her attention to the Netherfield men. She wished she could go over and demand to know what was going on, particularly what Spike knew, since he seemed to be able to see through the enchantment better, but she didn’t want to leave Willow either or cause her pain. Willow had been alone enough as it was, and Buffy honestly didn’t know when she’d see her friend again after the assembly.

Stupid book.

“Ah, that’s good,” Xander said after a refreshing swig of punch. He’d been drinking a lot of it in his breaks between dances and his eyes were gaining the glassy sheen of intoxication. He glanced over at Spike, who was surveying the room with a bored expression.

“You know, I can’t believe I’m asking this, but why aren’t you dancing?”

Spike’s stiff features became agitated. “Why am I—because, dim wit, they’re not bloody real, that’s why. I don’t know why you’re dancin’ so much with ‘em, the creepy bitches.”

Xander grinned out at the assembly. “What? They’re pretty.”

Spike pursed his lips and arched his scarred brow. “They’re fake, mate.”

“Okay, point,” Xander admitted sheepishly. Then he pointed over to Buffy, who quickly dropped her gaze. “But hey, Buffy isn’t dancing, why don’t you ask her?”

The vampire said nothing, but Buffy could practically feel his withering glare.

“Did I—did I really just ask that?” Xander wondered with a disturbed expression on his face. He took another gulp of punch.

“Right,” Spike began, “you know, I’ve got two answers to that, mate. One,” he stuck out a thumb, “I’m not dancin’ the bloody quadrille with The Slayer like we’re best pals. We’re not. I may have a soddin’ chip in my head back in dear old Sunnydale and a muzzle on my fangs in this hellscape, but we’re still mortal enemies, got it? And two,” he extended his index finger, “my part in this stupid story is to be an asshole anyway, so I’ll just keep doin’ me, yeah?”

Xander gave him a disapproving look. “Okay, fine! Geez, you don’t have to be such a dick about it.”

“Actually, I do.” He took an angry swig from his punch glass. “And anyway, there ain’t a bird in this place that’s handsome enough to tempt me, Slayer included, so there.”

Buffy almost laughed out loud. As if Spike was such a catch!

“Go on,” he waved a hand dismissively, “go dance with your girl. I’m destined to be the soddin’ wet blanket in this stupid bloody part anyway, so stop wastin’ time with me.”

“Yeesh,” Willow commented as they watched Xander walk away and Spike retreat to a corner with Harmony, “that was harsh.”

“Whatever.” Buffy looped her hand through Willow’s arm. “It’s just Spike. He’s evil. I’ve never wanted to dance with him before and I never will. It’s that simple.”

“Still,” Tara interjected, returning from where she’d been speaking with Joyce, “you’d think he’d loosen up maybe. It wouldn’t hurt him to dance with some of these fake-people, either. They may not be real, b-but they look so lonely.”

“He’s arrogant,” Buffy pronounced, shrugging. “He’s always been that way. He’ll do all kinds of stupid stuff to try to kill me, but he won’t risk losing face dancing at a make-believe ball. You know, I bet he can’t even dance.”

Willow watched Spike as he continued to drink punch at the edge of the room.

“I dunno. He’s the only one who seems to remember the book very well. Maybe he knows something we don’t? And anyway, he’s rich. Even rich people in Sunnydale can be proud, haughty types.”

Buffy blinked hard. “Did you…did you really just defend Spike?”

Willow recalled herself and paled.

“I—I really don’t like this place. Half the time my memory is all wobbly and confusing. Before I saw you guys here tonight, I was starting to think I really was Charlotte!”

“Oh sweetie,” Tara stroked Willow’s arm comfortingly.

“And when I was still trying to figure out where I was, I kept getting jerked back to my not-really-home home, Lucas Lodge. It got so bad I’d be dizzy for like ten minutes after each attempt. It felt like...like being a bobble-head on a dashboard, and it wasn’t nearly as much fun as I thought that'd be.”

“You’ve imagined being a bobble-head?” Buffy asked, truly confused.

She shrugged defensively. “Xander and I talked about it once in sixth grade. That’s not the point! The point is, I want to kick this muse-lady’s booty and get outta here!”

“You and me both,” Buffy answered grimly. Anger twisted in her center, making her clench her fists at her sides. How dare the muse do this to Willow, to any of them? It was bad enough being pulled out of Sunnydale; did she really have to make it hurt when they did something “wrong”?

Tara and Willow became engrossed in a conversation of their own, and Buffy wandered away. She felt knotted up, frustration and anger thrumming through her, demanding a release, a target to unleash her fury upon. Her gaze fell on Spike, once again standing on the opposite side of the crowded assembly hall.

A bolt of shock coursed through her. The vampire was already watching her.

Of course, almost as soon as her gaze met his, he glanced away. A disdainful curl bent his lips, like she was beneath his notice.

Her pulse roared in her ears with indignation. Spike had some nerve! They might be stuck in this ridiculous book together, but really, who did he think he was? What he’d said to Xander was true; it didn't matter what their roles in this story were: he was still a vampire, and she was still the Slayer. He couldn’t just ignore her like she was some--some boring set-piece, no better than the make-believe people around them! As if she were a common domestic servant, not the daughter of a proper gentleman!

Without thinking, she started toward him, her knuckles white as she balled her hands into tighter fists. Her efforts were rewarded with a painful jerk around her waist, pulling her back to her previous position.

“Really?” Buffy snarled, looking at the ceiling.

The muse didn’t appear to answer her or even to laugh at her. Buffy spent the rest of the night prowling between the people gathered in the hall, searching their eyes for that tell-tale supernatural sparkle.

In the end, she turned up nothing. When she crawled into her bed in the early hours of the morning, a little woozy from the many cups of punch she’d imbibed after her failed attempt to find the muse, she was still fuming. It didn’t help that every time she closed her eyes, she saw Spike’s stupid, sky blue ones looking back at her—and the dismissive expression they held for the brief moment their gazes met across the room.


	5. Chapter 5

“Mr. Giles, you should have been there,” Joyce was saying the next morning around the breakfast table. The girls had eaten quickly and left, determined to pay Willow a visit. “Xander and the girls had so much fun!”

Giles glanced over the top of the paper he was reading skeptically. “Is that so?”

“Yes! And you should have seen Xander! He was so sweet, dancing with Anya practically all night. You could tell he thought she was the most gorgeous girl he’d ever seen.”

“Mhmm.” Giles flicked the newspaper back up and kept reading.

“Oh, but I couldn’t believe what Spike said about Buffy.”

The Watcher sighed and folded the paper in his lap. He clearly wouldn’t be able to read it in silence for some time yet.

“What did he say?” he asked dutifully.

Joyce gathered herself, frowning indignantly. “He called Buffy plain! Can you believe it? And said that none of the girls were good enough for him—no one at the dance even. You know, I knew he had issues, but I thought he was just rough-around-the-edges. He was such a party-pooper last night, stalking around the corners of the assembly and scowling. It practically ruined the whole mood of the evening.”

“Joyce,” Giles said, reaching across the table and patting her hand, “he is a vampire. They always brood and skulk about. It’s part of the whole creature-of-the-night business.”

Joyce pursed her lips with disapproval.

“Well he can enjoy the sunlight now; you’d think he’d be in a better mood. And he was always so well-mannered whenever he came around before, I don’t see why he can’t be now. He really shouldn’t have been so rude to Buffy!” She paused from her tirade, sipping her tea. “I always wondered if he had a bit of a crush on her, you know.”

Giles swept the glasses from his face and blinked in disbelief, taken aback by both the sudden shift in conversation and her ridiculous assertion.

“A—a crush? You thought Spike had some sort of…romantic feelings towards Buffy?”

Joyce picked up a piece of toast and smeared some marmalade across it, looking thoughtful.

“Well, when they made that truce a few years ago, there was just something in the way he looked at her…”

“Suppressed blood-lust, I’m sure.” The Watcher pushed his spectacles back up his nose. “Spike’s always been peculiar, what with his loyalty and infatuation with Druscilla, but at the end of the day, he is a vampire. They don’t feel things the same way.”

Buffy’s mother arched an eyebrow as she gazed across the table.

“I’m not so sure about that. A mother knows, Mr. Giles.” Abruptly her attitude shifted, becoming irritable and dissatisfied again. “But he was so unpleasant last night! The nerve, saying Buffy isn’t beautiful!”

“I’m sure Buffy doesn’t care.” Giles sat back, smiling warmly. “She’s quite tough, you know. If she can fight demons all night, she can handle a little slight from somebody as unimportant as Spike.”

 

~*~

 

“Did you have fun last night, Dawnie?”

The Longbourn girls were walking down the lane towards Lucas Lodge. Tara had tried to return to the Lodge with Willow last night but had been jerked away and ended up at Longbourn instead. The girls had spent the evening comforting her, and Buffy promised they’d make a visit in the morning. She couldn’t bear the thought of leaving Willow alone too long with her fake-family either and had shoveled down her breakfast to hasten their departure.

Dawn grinned. “Yeah, it was so great! I’ve always wanted to go to a Victorian ball.” She did a happy twirl, closing her eyes to the remembered sound of music.

“Regency,” Anya corrected her, though she was smiling at Dawn’s clear pleasure.

“You and Xander seemed to have a lot of fun,” Buffy added. Dawn had danced a couple times with him, laughing every time he stepped on one of her toes.

“We did,” she said, plucking a flower from a nearby bush. “He’s really nice, just like he always was.”

“And now he’s rich.” Anya grinned, her eyes twinkling with something like hunger. “He’d make a good match for me.”

Buffy paused. “Anya, is that what you like him for, his money?”

“No!” Anya protested, before adding, “but it certainly helps. Xander’s got plenty going for him; he’s hot, he’s nice, and he laughs at my jokes. He’s a catch.”

Dawn giggled. “If you like him so much, why don’t you ask him to marry you?”

“Because that’s not how it works here, silly child,” Anya said, raising her chin. “I have to wait for him to make a move. And even then, marriage is a sham that men force on women to grant them exclusive rights to their bodies while they go rollicking around screwing anything they please. But…he is cute. And he does have money.”

Dawn trotted alongside her sister and Anya as they began to walk again. Ahead, Tara was bending from time to time to pluck wildflowers, weaving them into a flower crown, while Cordelia chatted about how, even though none of the men here were real, per say, a few of them had been cute.

“You really like him,” Dawn teased. Anya arched an eyebrow in warning, and Dawn cleared her throat, fixing her gaze on the lane ahead. “Anyway, new topic. What about what Spike said?”

Buffy glanced at Dawn sharply.

“What about what Spike said? Who told you?”

“I told her,” Anya stated. When Buffy gave her a disapproving look, she shrugged. “What? He was really rude. And we ran out of things to talk about, staying up all night with Tara.”

“Who told you?”

Anya shrugged. “Xander, of course.”

Of course. Good to see the grapevine still worked just as well in book-hell as it did in Sunnydale.

Oh well, Buffy thought, resigned. The more things changed, the more they didn’t. Nothing about the muse’s bizarro magic could change that aspect of human nature, apparently. Unless this was all part of the story?

“I can’t believe he said that,” Dawn added vehemently. “He must have had a reason. I mean, Spike acts like a jerk, but he’s not.”

Buffy drew up short again, catching her sister by the arm.

“Dawn, Spike’s a vampire. He’s a killer.” How did she still not get it? “He’s not a nice guy that’s just—just misunderstood!”

Dawn jerked her arm from her sister’s grasp. “How do you know? You’ve never even tried to get to know him! And you’re just mad because he said you weren’t pretty!”

Buffy tilted her head, anger creeping into her eyes. “Oh, sister, that is so not true. I’m mad—”

She paused. She wasn’t mad, was she? No. Irritated, maybe, or upset, but not mad.

“I’m upset—” she amended after taking a deep breath, “—because he basically said that if he gets the chip out of his head, he’s going to kill again. And guess who’s number one on his hit list?”

Dawn crossed her arms. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“He said he would himself!” Buffy exclaimed. She wanted to grab her sister and shake her for being so stupid. How could she be so blind?

“Didn’t he help you with your ex?” Anya asked, squinting thoughtfully. “Angelus, right?”

“Yes, he did!” Dawn said firmly. “And—and he’s spent all this time with the Scoobies, so he won’t hurt us.”

The air left Buffy in an exasperated whoosh. “He’s tried to kill me several times already, Dawn. He was working with Adam to make a demon-hybrid army. Spike only started helping us again so I wouldn’t stake him! He’s evil.”

Dawn didn’t say anything, but Buffy could see tears gathering in her eyes.

She deflated. “Dawnie, I’m sorry.” She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders. Dawn didn’t lean in or return the hug, but she didn’t slip away either.

“I just don’t think he’s as bad as you think,” Dawn answered tightly. “You’re not even giving him a chance. Angel was way worse than Spike when he lost his soul, but you’re still okay with him.”

“That’s different,” Buffy sighed.

“Is it?” Anya cocked her head and fixed Buffy with a sidelong look. When Buffy shot her a glare that could melt glass, Anya held up her hands and walked away.

“Okay, sure, that’s fair,” Buffy said, turning back to her sister. “But when neither of them has a soul, they both kill people. It’s not something you should forget Dawn.”

“Spike can’t kill people here, though,” Dawn looked up at her sister, frowning angrily, “and you’re still judging him.”

Buffy had to dig deep—to abyssal depths, really—for the patience to put up with Dawn’s twisted logic. Spike not killing because he couldn’t was so not morally equivalent to Spike not killing because he understood it was wrong and didn’t want to (a concept that, as a vampire, he couldn’t possibly grasp, Buffy added to her mental rant). But going down that rabbit hole wasn’t going to help right now, and right now they all needed to stick together to figure out how to escape back to Sunnydale, if they could. Taking another deep breath, she nodded.

“Okay, fine. Let’s say I forget about that, then.” She gave it some thought before smiling ruefully. “I guess I might have been able to give him the benefit of the doubt last night if he hadn’t said I was the human equivalent of vanilla ice cream.”

“Nothin’ special?” At the displeased look on Buffy’s face, Dawn smirked. “Told ya.”

Buffy released her sister with a sigh. “Yeah, well, shut up.”

“I mean, you’re at least as interesting as mint-chocolate chip!” Dawn proclaimed, grinning and bouncing on her toes as they started down the lane again.

“Not moose tracks?”

“Nope. Too comfort-food-y. And you’re, like, totally terrible at being comforting. Like last night, when you tried to get Tara not to cry—”

“Yeah, well, I’m the Slayer,” Buffy said hurriedly, her cheeks flushing, “not the Comforter.”

The sisters, arms linked, hurried down the lane to catch up with their family, chatting all the way.

 

~*~

 

“God, what I wouldn’t kill for some ciggys,” Spike lamented.

He was lying across a billiards table, throwing the cue ball absently into the air and catching it. Harmony was playing solitaire in the corner. She’d been so surprised when Spike told her the computer program was based on an actual game, and more shocked to learn she could use a deck of cards to occupy herself. He couldn’t believe how utterly ignorant she was, but then he wondered why he was surprised. The discovery had paid in dividends, though, because between the last two days she had spent a full six hours sitting quietly with her cards, which meant for those precious stretches of time she wasn’t bugging Spike every five minutes.

“There’s plenty of cigars,” Harmony said absently.

Spike caught the ball and tossed it again. “Not the same.”

It was true. Cigars were for the frilly, fat-cats crowd; cigarettes, on the other hand, those were the smokes of the everyman, quick and casual and harsh. But, in another blow to the balls doled out by their cruel muse mistress, he couldn’t find them anywhere, not in the shops, not passed between day-laborers on their breaks, not stolen and smoked behind schoolyards by sprogs trying to be tough. He’d asked the servants where to find some, and they all stared at him with blank, sheep-like expressions. Bloody things hadn’t made it to England yet, apparently. He’d have to look into finding some wrapping papers—or something close enough to do the job—so he could make his own.

A gunshot reverberated from somewhere outside, making Harmony squeak and look up from her game. Xander was out hunting again. He was actually a fairly decent shot, to Spike’s surprise. Despite loathing the boy, Spike’d accompanied him once out of sheer boredom. It’d been nice for all of an hour, but then he’d abandoned the sport. Hunting birds seemed dull compared to the thrills of hunting larger, smarter game.

It wasn’t easy readjusting to the extremely slow lifestyle of the nineteenth century, Spike was finding. Yeah, he’d lived it all before, but he’d been in London, and even in his day the city was host to all kinds of diverting activities. Being in the countryside was becoming, well, torturous.

Abandoning the game of catch he was playing with himself, he left the games room and wandered the corridors of Netherfield. Really, what had he done before the invention of the telly? He knew the answer to that: he’d spent his waking hours fighting, hunting, and shagging with Druscilla. They’d gone to bars and parties and concerts together and drained meatbags and had a grand old time doing it. But none of those options were available in this awful excuse for reality, so he was forced to consider other pastimes.

He ended up in Netherfield’s library at length and found himself scanning the shelves. There were a few volumes in the collection he remembered liking, and he plucked them out and made himself comfortable on one of the loveseats in the center of the room.

He was thirty pages into Poems, In Two Volumes by Wordsworth when Harmony found him.

She draped herself across the back of the loveseat.

“Spikey, I’m bored.”

He batted her hands away from his shoulders as she tried to rub them.

“Look around. We’re in a library. Go pick a book and leave me alone. Sure they’ve got kiddy ones around here somewhere.”

“What are you reading?”

Spike snapped the book shut. “Nothin’. Just some pretentious old wanker’s idea of poetry.”

“Can I see?”

“Fine.” He handed it to her. She cracked it open to the first page and glanced at it. Less than a minute later she tossed it on the cushion beside him with a dramatic sigh.

“It’s boring. Just like everything else in this stupid, boring place.”

The book had fallen spine-up and open, its pages bent and pinned between its cover and the cushions. Clenching his jaw, he picked the book up, closed it properly, and set it on a nearby side table.

“You remember this stuff better than I do,” Harmony said, getting up and wandering to the other loveseat. “When does something interesting happen?”

“I’ve told you,” he growled irritably, “tomorrow we go to the Lucas’.”

She laid down on the loveseat with a huff. “And what happens there?”

“An orgy.”

“Really? That wasn’t in the miniseries, but I guess they wanted to make it family-friendly.” Her eyes brightened. “Will there be lots of hot guys?”

Spike’s head fell into his hands. “Harm, just—just shut up.”

 

~*~

 

Willow was overjoyed when the whole party arrived from Longbourn. Giles put a hand on her shoulder and greeted her warmly, and she had to resist the urge to hug him, gut-churning weirdness aside.

The Netherfield contingent was already there. Xander was chatting pleasantly with some of the phonies, as the girls of Longbourn had started calling them, but when he saw they’d arrived he instantly came over to greet them.

Harmony was passing time playing cards with other attendees at the party, but Spike was once again standing off to the side, drinking solemnly and ignoring everyone. When the party from Longbourn arrived, however, he drifted toward their sphere, hovering at the edge to listen but never entering it.

Buffy gave him a sidelong look, wondering what goal he hoped to achieve by lurking.

“I dunno, why don’t you ask him?” Willow answered when Buffy commented on it.

Buffy wrinkled her nose. “Nah, not that interested.”

She staunchly ignored him as she circulated around the room, but he cautiously watched her.

The phonies weren’t all bad, she realized. They weren’t always great conversation partners—or rather, she didn’t always understand what they were talking about—but they were mostly cheerful and obliging. Several made comment to her about how Xander looked at Anya, how smitten he appeared.

She wasn’t so sure about that. He seemed to be having fun with Anya, that much was true, but he mostly looked like he wanted to whisk her off to a room with a handy “Do not disturb” sign slung on the doorknob. So: horny? Yes. Smitten? Maybe when Buffy cocked her head and squinted she could see it. Maybe.

“Oh, Miss Eliza,” Sir Lucas said, suddenly at her elbow, “your sister is at the piano playing so well! Why aren’t you dancing?”

Buffy started, realizing that he was talking to her, and glanced over at the instrument. Tara was sitting at it, her hands gliding over the keys.

“Mr. Darcy, won’t you dance?”

Now Buffy wheeled back around to see Spike standing just behind Sir Lucas. He was glaring at the man, clearly irritated.

“How could you not,” Sir Lucas continued jovially, apparently oblivious, “with such a lovely partner available?”

Spike’s blue eyes settled on Buffy’s face, and his countenance shifted from annoyed to resigned. He threw back the glass of punch he held in his hand before he spoke.

“A’right, what’dya say, Slayer? Shall we have a turn ‘round the room?”

Buffy tried not to openly blanch. Instead, she pasted a falsely bright smile on her face.

“Well that’s easy: no.”

He raised his eyebrows. “You sure? I mean, I’m bored outta my skull sittin’ ‘round here. Might as well get some exercise.”

Winking sardonically, she answered, “Thanks, but no thanks.”

“Come now, Miss Eliza, you have a willing partner! Mr. Darcy has asked most graciously, are you sure you will refuse him?”

Buffy smiled wider. “Yep, pretty sure. I’ll pass.”

She promptly drifted away without a backward glance.

Harmony came to Spike’s shoulder and scoffed. “God, what’s her damage?”

Spike shrugged, striding over to the punch bowl and refilling his cup. “Simple, Harm. She’s playin’ her part.”

“Still, rude. Everyone at this stupid party is so dull.”

He shrugged again, drinking.

Harmony’s mouth bent into a wicked smile.

“Just imagine tearing everyone in this place apart limb from limb. Imagine tearing Buffy apart. Doesn’t that just warm your cold dead heart?”

Spike glanced over at the Slayer. “I know what I’m supposed to say.”

His companion gave him a confused look. “Huh?”

“I’m supposed to say ‘no’. I’m supposed to say somethin’ ‘bout the ‘very great pleasure which a pair of fine eyes in the face of a pretty woman can bestow.’”

One of Harmony’s hands reached up and touched her chest. “Spikey, that’s so beautiful.”

“Yeah, well, it’s a load of bollocks.” He leaned against a wall, gripping his punch. “Somethin’ a loveless spinster wrote in her drawin’ room without knowin’ how life goes. Needed a good shag, she did.”

He sipped from his glass and his lips came away blood red as he continued to watch Buffy.

For her part, Buffy actually enjoyed the afternoon and evening passed at the Lucas’, despite Spike’s presence. The whole Longbourn party was reluctant to part with Willow at the Lucas’ front door, and with Xander further down the road, though none of them were sad to get away from the two vampires with him.

“Isn’t there a way we can get Willow to stay with us?” Dawn asked sleepily, resting her head on Buffy’s shoulder as the carriage trundled down the lane.

Buffy bit her lip. “I don’t know. Maybe I can speak to the muse and arrange something?”

Tara looked across at her with tearful eyes. “Please do. It’s hard on her, Buffy. And me.”

Buffy trekked out to the middle of the field that night and called for the muse. She waited for an hour, screaming into the night until her voice was hoarse.

There was no response.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a quick heads-up, guys: I'll be on vacation for the next week in a place with very limited internet access, so I won't be able to post. Thanks for all the kudos and I hope you guys enjoy this chapter!

“Anya, you have a letter!”

It was a few days after their time at Lucas Lodge. Tara had been visiting Willow daily and had already left when the footman brought the letter in to the breakfast table.

Joyce was very excited to see it came from Netherfield, as were the rest of the girls. Cordelia and Dawn had been telling their mother about news of the militia coming to nearby Meryton, how even if it was made up of a bunch of phonies it was at least a noticeable change in the landscape, but the letter was of far more interest.

Anya eagerly opened it. Her smile sagged as she read the contents.

“It’s from Harmony,” she began, her eyes darting to and fro as she read on, “she says she’s bored and the boys are out doing something else. She’s asking if I’ll come to dinner.”

“What a lovely invitation,” Joyce said brightly. She glanced out the window, and Buffy saw the calculating gleam in her mother’s eyes.

“Well this is an obvious plot device if I ever saw one.” Anya sipped her tea as she set the letter aside.

Joyce looked back at her daughter. “What’d you say dear?”

Anya blinked hard. “Huh. I don’t remember.” She rose. “Giles, call for the carriage.”

Giles opened his mouth, likely to say something about how she couldn’t order him around, but Joyce cut him off.

“No, you’ll go by horse.”

Her eldest daughter frowned. “I’ve spent way too much time on those giant death machines already. Centuries, in fact. Why can’t I take the carriage?”

Joyce cocked her head. “You know, I think it’s going to rain. And then you’ll be able to stay with Xander overnight. Wouldn’t you like that?”

The gloom lifted from Anya’s face and she grinned. “Sign me up!”

She left half an hour later. Soon after it began pouring rain, just as planned.

Buffy and her other sisters spent the day indoors. Cordelia and Dawn spent most of their time together in their rooms, thick as thieves. Since Tara was also out, Buffy tried to find something to do in the sitting room with her mother.

But Buffy was not made for sitting long in one place.

“Giles,” she said, bursting into his study, “give me something to do.”

He looked over the rims of his glasses at her. A book on botany was open on his desk.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Exercises, Giles. Drills. Anything, just—” she deposited herself in the chair opposite of his desk, “—give me something to do!”

It took a moment for her Watcher to recall what she was talking about. Then he rose and, considering where best to put her, led her to the attic. There they found a mannequin, which Giles tied several layers of old down pillows to and ran her through some basic drills.

At length, Giles sank onto an old, dusty chair and swept the glasses from his face.

“Buffy, I—I have a confession.”

She punched a little too hard and sent the dummy clattering across the attic floor. Wincing at her lack of control, she unwrapped the ribbons from her knuckles and turned to Giles. “What’s up?”

He kept his gaze focused on the floor. “I fear—I fear I’m forgetting Sunnydale and your Calling.”

Buffy shrugged, keeping her shoulders loose. “We all slip sometimes.”

“But it’s not just sometimes,” Giles stated glumly, “it’s more often the last few days. I only remember when you remind me.”

An uneasy feeling fluttered in her stomach. “I—I’m trying my best, Giles, but I don’t know what I’m doing.”

He nodded. “I know. I just—I just want you to know that I value you, Buffy. You’re quite like a daughter to me already and I—”

“Giles, stop,” Buffy commanded. Behind her steady voice, there was a quaver of fear.

Her Watcher glanced up at her, surprised.

“Stop talking like that. We’re gonna get through this, and when we do, I’m gonna have you and Willow throw this stupid muse into the worst Hell dimension we can find.”

Giles chuckled at that. “Ah, Buffy. If only it were that simple.”

“It is.” Buffy lifted her chin. “We’re the good guys. We find a problem and fix it. We save the world. End of story.”

“Yes, well, this is a tad different I’m afraid.” He scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “This has nothing to do with the world.”

“Yeah, I know,” Buffy replied. “It has to do with family. It’s personal. And I’m gonna make sure we get outta here.”

Her Watcher laughed softly again. “Quite right, Buffy.”

Buffy observed him for a long moment. “I have a job for you.”

He glanced up. “For me?”

“Yep. I want you to write down everything you know about muses.” Buffy stepped closer, her eyes blazing. “And when you finish that, you’re gonna write down everything else you remember. Everything. Get Willow to help if you can. But we’re gonna make our own library, Giles. And if there’s a way to cheat this book-lovin’, life-stealin’ ho, we’re gonna find it.”

Giles stared up at his charge, scarcely able to breathe. Then he smiled warmly and settled the glasses back on his face.

“My God, Buffy. Where did that come from?”

The corner of her mouth twitched up. “Where do you think?”

He nodded, a warm feeling expanding in his chest. “Yes, well…back to drill, then.”

 

***

 

The next morning a letter came from Anya.

“Mom, she’s sick!” Buffy glared accusingly at her mother. “There’s like, no doctors in this century, right?”

Her mother put down the ribbon lace she was sorting and patted Buffy’s hand.

“Honey, she’ll be fine. She just has a little cold.” Turning back to her work, she smiled conspiratorially. “Besides, now she’ll get to spend even more time with Xander. Am I good or what?”

Buffy groaned in frustration. “Mom, people do die in books, you know. Especially in old books when the world sucked more.”

“That may be true, but I don’t think this is that kind of book. Feels like the wrong genre.”

“What?”

Her mother huffed and dropped the pile of ribbons into her lap. “Just trust me, I’m your mother. Now what do you think would look better on Dawn’s bonnet, this lace with the bigger loops or this one with the triangles?”

Buffy continued to glare for another second before sighing. “That one.” She pointed at the second one. “I’m going to go check on Anya. To, you know, make sure she doesn’t die.”

Dawn and Cordelia struck out with her, but they parted ways when they reached Meryton. Buffy pushed on, and as she trekked across the rolling fields toward Netherfield, she had plenty of time for reflection.

“Gah, how long is this stupid book, anyway?” she grumbled, stooping to pluck a daisy as she walked. The days were blurring together, and it disturbed her how sometimes—just sometimes—she didn’t mind. Times when she and her sisters—her sister and friends—laid around in the sitting room and chatted about mundane things were especially dangerous. Or nights when she went to bed and didn’t even think about going on patrol or how to fight monsters or when the next apocalypse would come.

But they were being drawn on by an invisible hand, puppeteered even, and that thought alone made her feel angry and, if she was honest with herself, scared. She was the Slayer, but here that didn’t seem to matter at all. Sometimes that thought was exhilarating, but usually it galled her. And when she considered what might be happening to Sunnydale in their absence? A cold dread filled her.

And what if Anya really was sick? What if she died? What did that mean when they returned to Sunnydale? Would she be there, waiting? Or did things that happened here somehow effect what happened in the real world? Or—or was this the real world, and Sunnydale the dark fantasy of her imagination as a bored, restricted nineteenth century woman?

“Stop it,” Buffy told herself firmly. She knew what was real and what wasn’t.

Netherfield Park, in all its country grandeur, slid into view ahead of her. She threw her small bouquet of daisies away and picked up the pace.

 

~*~

 

“I didn’t know people could get sick in books,” Xander stated glumly, staring at the food on his plate.

Spike closed his eyes in disgust. “Have you ever even read a book, Harris?”

“Yeah, plenty!” he protested defensively. He poked his eggs with his fork. “I just like comics better, that’s all.”

Harmony was flipping through the latest edition of Ackerman’s Repository, lingering on the fashion plates. “Why are there so few pictures?” she complained.

Spike picked up his cup of tea and drank it before he could say anything scathing. It would still be a waste of breath to answer, and he didn’t even need to breathe. He was trapped in a house with a couple of idiots and a host of magical constructs, and he was starting to prefer the company of the latter. Gone were the days that he just avoided his two roommates; now he concocted elaborate fantasies of how he would kill them if he could.

So, he sipped his tea, imagined driving a fork through Harmony’s eye, and said nothing. At least the fake wankers could make a decent cuppa.

He’d tried to go talk to Anya just for a change of pace, but the muse apparently didn’t think that was appropriate. Just what the crazy bird thought was in keeping with the story and what wasn’t seemed arbitrary to Spike, but he couldn’t say he was any madder about that than he was about the whole business in general. Maybe he’d be surprised and she’d give this story a twist ending. Maybe in this version Mr. Darcy would lose his marbles and go on a murder-spree after all.

Wouldn’t that be lovely?

A footman entered the parlor and announced the arrival of Miss Elizabeth Bennet.

Spike had known this part of the novel would imminently pass, but he was surprised by how relieved he was to see the Slayer march into the breakfast parlor. The hem of her dress was filthy, as expected, and her face glowed with a slight sheen of sweat. Wistfully, Spike recalled all the times they’d traded blows, how her skin had glittered with exertion and her eyes with rage.

Bloody hell, he really was going ‘round the bend.

“Buffy!” Xander stood so quickly his chair fell over. Spike rose more sedately, following the etiquette of the period.

“Xander,” the tight expression on Buffy’s face melted upon seeing him, “it’s good to see you.”

“Tell me about it!” He gestured to the table. “Sit down, eat something!”

The Slayer shook her head, the loose curls of her stray hair bobbing around her face.

“Can’t yet. Gotta go see Anya.”

“I’ll take you!” he said eagerly, and almost tripped over his fallen chair trying to hurry over to her.

They both left, Xander speaking lowly to his friend as they slipped out of sight.

“Ugh, so gross,” Harmony commented once Buffy was gone. “Did you see her? What a fashion disaster! She tracked mud all over our floor.”

“Yeah,” Spike subsided back into his seat, cocking his head pensively, “she was a right mess.”

Harmony looked back at her magazine with pursed lips.

“I don’t know why everyone always falls all over themselves to impress her. She’s not even that pretty.”

She glanced up to see him still watching the corridor Buffy had disappeared down.

“Oh, come on. She was covered in dirt. You can’t think she looked good?”

He smiled slightly and quirked a brow. “I dunno. Maybe I like my women a little dirty.”

Harmony made a face. “Ew.”

Spike abruptly scowled. What was he even saying? Was he really so bloody desperate?

He pushed his tea aside and directed one of the footmen to bring him some whisky immediately.

 

~*~

 

“How is she?”

Xander tucked his hands into his waistcoat pockets. “Not great. She’s got a pretty bad fever.”

Beside him, Buffy made a frustrated growl. “I told Mom this was a bad idea!”

“Buff,” Xander began slowly, “what exactly are we doing to, you know, get outta this?”

She worried her lip before answering. “Giles is working on something. And I’m gonna ask Willow to help. But—it’s complicated. We don’t have our books and everyone’s memories are…”

When she didn’t continue, Xander nodded. “Yeah. I get it. I’ve been forgetting things too. Just sometimes,” he added quickly, “and having Spike and Harm bickering all the time makes it easier to remember how nice it was in Sunnydale. God, I wish there was a crypt around here somewhere. Maybe if we’re here long enough, I’ll have one made.”

Buffy touched Xander’s arm reassuringly. “We won’t be here that long.”

They paused in front of a door.

“This is it,” he said, pushing it open.

Anya was laying in a cozy-looking bed, but she looked far from comfortable. Her nose and cheeks were red and her eyes were bright with fever. Buffy fetched a cold, wet cloth from a nearby washbasin and dabbed her friend’s forehead. Xander asked Anya from the door how she was feeling, but her croaked replies were terse and broken. After a few simple exchanges, he left them together, and Buffy stayed with Anya for the rest of the day. Dinner was brought to them, at which point a trunk of clothes from Longbourn also arrived, apparently ordered for her by Spike, who seemed to anticipate that her visit would be longer. Buffy was grateful for the change of clothes, but she made a mental note to make Spike tell her everything he knew about the story—and more importantly, how to make it end.

Eventually Anya settled into a peaceful sleep. Buffy had been dozing in a chair beside Anya’s bed for hours when a gentle knock sounded on the door. It was a footman come to check on her and invite her downstairs for a game of cards or other amusement.

She glanced back at Anya. She still looked ill, but not so ill that she needed constant attention. And Buffy did want to see Xander, though that also meant she’d probably have to deal with the two vampires as well. In the end, the need to escape the confines of the room won out, and she followed the footman down the hall.

She found them in the drawing room. Xander was sitting at a table with Spike and Harmony, to her surprise, and they were all in the middle of a game of Go Fish.

“I tried to teach them poker,” Spike drawled without looking at her, “but Harm’s right awful at it.”

“You wanna play?” Xander offered, indicating a chair.

“Sure,” she shrugged, and started over.

The room tilted sickeningly, and she found herself standing at the doorway again.

“Really?” Xander cried, looking at the ceiling. “Come on!”

“It’s fine,” Buffy grumbled dully, “I’ll just sit, I guess.”

She plopped into an armchair close to one window and stared out into the darkening night.

They continued their game for another minute before Spike tossed his cards down on the table and rose. Buffy listened to Harmony and Xander ask for this card or that while Spike shuffled around the room.

“Slayer.”

Buffy had felt him approaching, the tell-tale tingles shivering up down her neck, but she had hoped to staunchly ignore him. Now that he'd spoken directly to her, it seemed that wouldn't be possible.

She turned to face him, frowning. He was standing in front of her, a small stack of books held out in offering.

She didn’t move to take them. “What’re those?” 

He glanced at the ceiling. “They’re books, Slayer. Does no one read anymore?”

She remained unmoved, silently glaring up at him.

Spike sighed.

“Look, it’s a way to pass the time, yeah? Just take ‘em.”

Still suspicious, she cautiously reached for them. When she folded them into her arms, he relaxed slightly.

“Got you some Wordsworth, Blake, and Coleridge. Some of their best works aren’t out yet, which is a right shame. They’re wordy buggers, but there’s a reason why they’re still popular.”

Buffy glanced between the volumes and Spike, who was still standing before her. His expression was relaxed, but his muscles were tense with expectation.

“Why’re you giving these to me?”

“I told you. You look like you need somethin’ to do, some entertainment. So there you go. Period-appropriate entertainment.”

She narrowed her eyes. “This is a plot thing, isn’t it?”

Now he bristled. “Oh, sod it. Yeah, it is. You’re supposed to come in here and read, a’right? So there you are, some bloody books so we don’t all get our insides scrambled because you’re doin’ your best Cher Horowitz impression.”

She rose, setting the books aside. “How does it end, Spike?”

The muscles in his jaw clenched, making the line of his cheekbones more pronounced.

“You know, I could tell you right now and you’d forget by mornin’. Probably wouldn’t take that long, even.”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do. So let’s not and say we did, yeah?”

“Tell me.”

He gave her an appraising look. “Fine,” he conceded. “It goes like this: after today—”

He told her the broad strokes, relishing in the faces she made as he spun it out. Buffy comprehended it momentarily, holding the images his words conjured together in her mind. She and Spike—Spike and her—they were going to what? Her eyes widened, her mouth worked with indignation. No, no, that was sooo not gonna happen! There had to be another way. She'd rather die than--no, that wasn't true. But there was no way in this twisted BBC world or any hell dimension that she'd... She’d kill the muse before…before…

But then the knowledge faded, leaving behind nothing but a vaguely unsettling sense of horror.

“Wait…how does it end?”

Smirking, he shrugged. “I just told you, pet. No point in going over it all again.”

“You’re going to tell me,” she warned, clenching her fists, “as many times as it takes to get past the muse’s mystic mind-trick mo-jo!”

“Ha! Am not, and that’s a fact. But if you wanna give your fists a go, be my guest.”

She did. She took a swing and instantly felt the dizzying whirl of the muse’s intervention.

He grinned smugly at her. “Right, why don’t you have a seat then?”

Buffy glared at him, feeling the hot twisting of hate in her gut.

Surprisingly, the irritating smirk slid from his face. “Go on, Slayer. It’s not worth the trouble, I promise. And those aren’t all bad,” he indicated the volumes sitting on the side table where she’d put them, “give ‘em a go.”

Their eyes locked and they held each other’s gaze, each refusing to be the first to back down.

“Spikey’s always trying to get me to read,” Harmony piped up from the other side of the room. Spike and Buffy both turned their attention to her, each wearing equally annoyed expressions. “My Blondie Bear’s always trying to help me get cultured.”

“For all the bloody good it does,” he mumbled, stalking away. Buffy watched him go, sinking back into her seat and pulling one of the books into her lap. It was one written by Blake, she noted.

“He likes his ladies to be fashionable,” she chattered on, fluttering her lashes at him as he passed by, “and sexy and—and—”

“Well-read,” he replied archly, sliding into a chair next to a writing desk. “Don’t strain yourself, pet.”

She pouted. “Hey, I’m trying here, okay? And—and anyway, you never tell me what you want in a woman. You just want…well, you know!”

“What I want,” he growled, “is a challenge, Harm. That ain’t you.”

“So how did your thing with your stupid Drudzilla fall apart then?” she snapped. “She was plenty challenged!”

Spike stiffened with rage. “Don’t you ever—”

“Oh-kay,” Buffy said, rising, “I’m going back to check on Anya.”

“Oh please, take me with you,” Xander begged. But the moment he stood up, he clutched his middle and slumped back into his seat. “Never mind,” he gasped tightly, “see you later, Buff.”

She strode briskly from the room, Songs of Innocence and of Experience by Blake tucked firmly under her arm.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long gap, folks! I was on vacation all last week and needed some time to recover this week. Thanks for all the kudos and comments; they really make my day <3\. Here's the next installation, I hope you enjoy it!

A few days passed. Anya’s recovery was frustratingly—worryingly—slow. When Buffy wasn’t by her side, she wandered Netherfield inside and out, careful to avoid Harmony and Spike. Xander accompanied her as often as he could, but there were times when the phonies pulled him away, insisting he had business to attend to, or Buffy was called back to Anya’s bedside.

Looking out the window one day, she saw Spike spurring his horse into a gallop toward the woodlands on the grounds. She was struck by the fact that she’d never really seen him under full sun before, at least not anytime he wasn’t huddled under a blanket to avoid getting fried to a crisp. Of course, there was that time he’d had the Gem of Amara. She wasn’t sure that really counted, though. It was impossible to appreciate the novelty of it when she was fighting for her life.

Envy pricked her as she saw how well he rode. She’d found that her non-mixiness with cars extended to horses as well. Public transportation or putting one foot in front of the other, those were the only means of travel that agreed with her. Even from a distance, it was clear Spike was right at ease in the saddle, and she found herself idly wondering how many decades of practice he had, and when he’d begun to learn. When he was a human, maybe? She tried to picture him as a child or even a man. In the end, it was hard for her to imagine him being anything other than a monster.

When Anya didn’t feel better after the third day, Buffy sent a note to Longbourn requesting that her mother come check on her. When the Longbourn carriage arrived, it carried her mother along with the rest the household, minus Giles.

“Xander, what a beautiful home you have!”

“Thanks, Mrs. Ben—Mrs. Summers.”

Joyce circled the spacious sitting room they’d been ushered into, admiring its charms. Dawn, Cordelia, and Tara were seated on a long, low couch. The first two were clearly excited about something; Buffy could see them practically vibrating with the effort to stay silent.

“I hope Anya’s stay isn’t causing too much trouble,” Joyce continued, finding herself a place to sit.

“Oh no! No, it’s been great having her here…even if she is sick. I mean, it’s not great she’s sick, but it’s nice having company.”

“And you like it here?”

“Um,” Xander gave it some cursory thought, “yeah, I guess. It’s got lots of rooms and servants and birds to hunt. That’s more than I have in Sunnydale.” He laughed drily.

“You won’t be leaving anytime soon, will you?” Joyce abruptly asked.

There was a general pause. Spike, leaning against the wall next to one of the windows, arched a brow but said nothing.

Buffy shook her head. “Mom, why would you ask something like that?”

Joyce shrugged shallowly. “Oh, I don’t know. It seemed like a good question.”

Xander glanced between Buffy and Joyce, shifting in his seat with a frown as he considered the question.

“Well I don’t know. I don’t think so. I mean, where would I even go if I wasn’t here?” His eyes widened. “Is there even a world beyond here?”

“There’s London,” Spike suggested. “Populated by more of these creepy bastards, no doubt,” he jerked a thumb at the waiting footmen, “but at least there’d be more of ‘em and maybe something interestin’ to do from time to time.”

Joyce drew herself up straighter with umbrage. “Spike, what exactly do you mean by that? That it’s boring here? That we’re boring?”

“Not sayin’ that.” Spike answered coolly, though he turned his face toward the window and the world outside. Buffy saw a muscle tick tight in his jaw.

“Well it certainly sounded like it.” Joyce glowered at him. “The nerve, Spike, to say that we’re less interesting than—than a bunch of strangers!”

Her voice had become shrill by the end of her proclamation. Buffy winced.

“Mom, stop. We’re all trapped here and none of us are exactly happy about it. Spike’s just saying a change of scenery might be nice, that’s all.”

Wow, had she really just come to Spike’s defense? Buffy immediately dismissed the thought. She didn’t care about Spike’s feelings, she cared about how weird her mom was acting. While all moms had the innate superpower to embarrass their children anytime, anywhere, this was something different.

She was relieved to see her mother subside, but Joyce still tossed Spike one parting dirty look. “He could have worded it better. It’s not that horrible here. We have each other, and the neighbors are all very nice, even if they aren’t real people.”

No one spoke for a moment.

“So, how’s Willow doing?” Buffy said, suddenly anxious to fill the air with something other than the uncomfortable tension between them all.

Tara opened her mouth to speak, but Joyce interjected, “Willow’s doing just fine! You know, Xander, Willow was sweet on you for the longest time.”

“Mom!”

Joyce waved away Buffy’s shock with a light laugh. “Oh, it’s fine dear! All water under the bridge. Willow’s found a wonderful friend in Tara now. Anyway, she was never right for you, Xander. You and Anya make a much better couple.”

Buffy started to storm over to her mother, to grab her hand and lead her outside where they could have a private conversation about her seriously uncool behavior, but she was fixed in place. When she tried to rise, her stomach lurched sharply.

“Mother,” she hissed between gritted teeth, “stop talking.”

Xander turned to look at Spike, who gave him the smallest of shrugs. When he caught Buffy looking at him, she saw an expression of sympathy flash across his face. Spike, sympathetic? As if this whole situation couldn’t get any crazier. And why was he being so…so restrained? He always seemed marginally better behaved around her mother, but still, Spike was never—

Realization dawned on her; this was one of those plot things.

Dawn stood abruptly. “Xander, you remember what you told me at the assembly, right?”

He shifted around to face her. “Can’t say I do, Dawnster. What’d I say?”

She flashed him an excited grin.

“You said you liked dancing so much that you wanted to do it again. Here.”

Xander blinked in disbelief. “Uh, I did?”

Buffy could practically see the wheels turning furiously behind his eyes. That definitely didn’t sound like anything Xander would say, at least under his own power. But he had been pretty tipsy that evening. And there was, of course, the influence of the muse to consider. Not to mention her little sister’s machinations. When Dawn got an idea stuck in her twisted little juvenile brain, there wasn’t a force in Heaven or Hell that could get it unstuck. Buffy knew that all too well. She was The Slayer for crying out loud, and even she couldn’t control her younger sister sometimes.

Demons could learn a thing or two from Dawn. Buffy shuddered at the thought.

Dawn nodded emphatically at Xander’s bewildered expression, a triumphant smile spread from ear to ear.

“Yeah, you said you’d throw a ball. So…you gonna do it?”

All eyes in the room turned to Xander. Buffy wondered briefly if he would call Dawn’s bluff. But Xander, feeling the pressure of their collective scrutiny, chuckled nervously.

“Sure, okay. I mean, what else was I planning on doing with this big ol’ house?”

Dawn squealed with delight, as did Cordelia. The rest of the conversation turned, thankfully, to that subject, particularly on the inclusion of the militia officers who had recently come to town. Normally planning for a big fancy party with pretty dresses and expensive jewelry would have excited Buffy, but now she found it exhausting. She felt guilty to admit it, even to herself, but she was relieved when at last her family left. She wasn’t enjoying her stay at Netherfield, but her mother’s behavior worried her. As she returned to Anya’s bedside, she wondered how much each of them would be affected by the plot before they could reach the end or escape.

 

***

 

Buffy joined the Netherfield party in the drawing room later that afternoon. This time she brought the poems by Blake, which she had almost finished. She wasn’t sure she understood all of them, but the poems rhymed pleasingly, and it did pass the time. Of course it would take a combination of sheer boredom and being stuck in a muse’s pocket dimension to turn her into a book reader, Buffy reflected with resigned bitterness as she settled back into an armchair.

It was a quiet for a while, which suited Buffy just fine as she started reading where she’d left off the night before. Spike sat at the writing desk while Xander drank wine and dozed on the chaise and Harmony played solitaire at a nearby table.

But eventually Harmony tossed the cards aside and glared around the room. “God, I miss malls.”

Buffy agreed, but she didn’t say anything. It was too weird to agree with Harmony on anything. And besides, she was in the middle of a poem.

When no one answered, Harmony sighed loudly, got up, and drifted over to Spike.

“What’re you doing?”

Spike dipped his quill into a pot of ink.

“Well, I’m s’pposed to be writin’ to my dear sis Georgiana, but I’m pretty sure she ain’t in this version.”

“Um, okay,” Harmony shrugged. “Sooo what’re you doing instead?”

“Writin’ sonnets.”

“Really?”

He spared her a sharp glance.

“No. Sod off.” He pulled a piece of blank paper over his work. “I’m listin’ all the ways I’ll kill you lot when we get back to Sunnyhell, that’s what.”

Buffy watched this exchange with mild amusement. Spike and Harmony always made each other miserable. They deserved each other.

Harmony caught her smirk. Storming away from Spike with a sharp huff, she promptly caught Buffy around the arm and pulled her to her feet.

“Hey!” Buffy pushed her away.

Harmony pouted impressively. “Come on, I know we’ve had our differences, Buffy—”

“You kidnapped my sister, Harmony.”

“—but I’ve only had these two jerks to hang out with. It’s been awful!”

“Xander?” Buffy whined, turning to her friend.

He didn’t even raise his head. “Don’t look at me. Take one for the team while you’re here, Buff.”

She pouted, but no sympathy was forthcoming. Chafing at her abysmal luck, she set her book on the cushion of her chair and linked arms with Harmony. Being so close to the vampire made her itch for a stake, but she doubted Pride and Prejudice included the murder of Miss Bingley by Lizzy Bennet. Too bad, she thought. It probably would’ve made for a far more interesting story.

After strolling around the room—which to Buffy seemed stupid, since there was a whole house and grounds they could be enjoying beyond this dinky little parlor—Harmony turned her attention back to Spike.

“Like anything you see, Spikey?”

Buffy wrenched her grip free from Harmony, but was drawn back to the same position with a sickening lurch. She rolled her eyes and continued walking beside the vampire, fuming.

Spike leaned back in his chair and observed them, a small smirk bending the corner of his lips.

“Sure. Like it even better if you birds decided to strip.”

Xander cracked open an eye and lifted his head off the pillow. “Wait, stripping?”

Harmony suppressed a coy smile and tried to act scandalized instead.

“Ugh, so disgusting! What assholes! What should we do, Buffy, between a slayer and vampire, to punish them for being so naughty?”

“Hey, I didn’t say anything—or much, anyway.” Xander sank back onto the couch. He hadn’t missed the obviously flirtatious tone to Harmony’s speech, but Buffy’s withering glare made him think better of playing along.

“Fine, Spike then.” Harmony turned to him, smiling. “I think between you and I, Buffy, we could really bring the pain.” She kept her gaze pinned on the vampire as she spoke, taking exaggerated steps that made her hips roll as they continued to pace the room. Buffy was dragged along, making no special effort to match Harmony.

Spike shifted in his chair, suddenly expressionless.

“So what do you think we should do, Buffy?”

“Nothing.” Buffy stated flatly. “Spike’s a pig. That’s the long and short of it.”

Harmony disengaged from her. “But that’s no fun!”

“And we all know how much the Slayer hates fun,” Spike commented.

Buffy crossed her arms. “I don’t hate fun! Xander, tell him I don’t hate fun.”

“Will you tear my arms off if I don’t?”

“We go to the Bronze all the time and have fun—buckets of fun!”

Spike laughed. “If that’s your idea of good time, Slayer, your life has been pretty dull.”

“You know what my idea of a good time is?” Buffy said, finally facing him and flashing a dangerous smile. “Staking dirt-bag vampires. Loads of fun. Most fun a girl can have.”

Spike flicked the feathery end of a quill lying on the desk. “Ever tried doin’ somat else with a vamp?” His blue eyes slipped slowly back around to her. “We’re far more fun when we’re not a pile o’ dust, and that I can bloody guarantee.”

Blood abruptly climbed into her cheeks. God, Spike had some nerve! She wanted to say something snappy and sharp, something to cut through and destroy the innuendo still hanging in the air, but her mouth just wouldn’t form words. Buffy's mind went embarrassingly blank, except for the heady buzz of indignant anger, and, for some reason, the image of the soft, tapered end of the quill’s feather and the way Spike's index finger was teasing it. Her eyes met his, and they remained trained to each other for an unbearably long moment. She couldn’t seem to break the gaze that connected them, and she couldn't understand why.

Thankfully, a throw pillow did that for her. It sailed across the room and unceremoniously smacked Spike in the face.

The connection broken, Buffy turned to see Xander sitting up, arm outstretched, looking seriously disgusted.

“Dude, don’t be even more of a creep than we already know you are.”

Growling, Spike tossed the cushion away while Buffy recovered.

“Yeah,” she began, her voice treacherously unsteady, “and I have—you know, done more. With a vampire. Been there, done that, got the T-shirt.” And some brutally deep emotional scars, she added silently. Her voice was stronger when she spoke again. “Dusting vamps is still more satisfying. So there.”

“Ugh,” Spike made a face, “if that’s true, Angel seriously did you wrong, princess. My condolences.”

“And you are such a god, I’m sure,” Buffy retorted, packing as much sarcasm as she could into that one sentence. “What makes you think you’re so perfect?”

“I’m not, and I don’t.” He relaxed back into his seat and quirked his scarred brow. “Got plenty o’ screws loose. But I know myself, good, bad, and—” he paused, smirking, “well, can’t say ugly. Sexy then. Point is, I know why I am the way I am, what makes me tick. And when it comes to shaggin', don’t have to be a god to know what women like; just gotta pay an ounce of attention. And that I do. You might do better usin’ that brain between your ears before your fists sometimes. Maybe then you’d give credit where credit’s due and stop givin’ too much where ‘s not deserved.”

Buffy was rendered speechless for a full second. Then she shook her head. “What are we even talking about?”

He squinted at the ceiling and began counting on his fingers.

“Let’s see: your bloody taste in men, your astonishing lack of self-awareness, and the fact that you’ve obviously never had a good shag in your life and that—well, that’s just pathetic.”

“You don’t know that!” Buffy snapped. “You don’t know anything about me!”

He fixed her with a disturbingly clear gaze.

“Yeah, I do, pet,” he said with perfect, even coolness. "I pay attention."

She once again stared at him, incapable of processing the sheer audacity of his claims.

“Spike,” she bit out, “the most you know about me—the most you’ll ever know about me—is how quickly and completely I can kick your ass. Nothing else. Nada.” She barked out a harsh laugh then. “I don’t even know why we’re having this conversation!”

“I don’t know either,” Harmony admitted, clearly irritated. “That took a waaaaay different direction than I thought it would. Geez, unresolved sexual tension, much?”

Spike scoffed and Buffy blanched, their faces twisting with clear disgust as they simultaneously turned away from each other, Spike toward his desk and Buffy toward her armchair and book.

“Okay,” Xander clapped his hands together, “great chat! Let’s never have it again.”

 

***

 

“Oh dear,” Giles said, entering the dining room, “I hope you’ve ordered a good meal tonight, Joyce.”

The girls around the breakfast table all paused from helping themselves to the meal set before them, looking up at Giles expectantly. Buffy and Anya were among them.

Buffy and Anya had finally returned home day before. Anya was upset that she hadn’t really gotten to spend much time with Xander at all (“I know we can’t have sex yet, but hell, we didn’t even get to hold hands!”) and had complained about it all the way back to Longbourn. Buffy, however, was immensely relieved by their departure. She couldn’t help but replay the conversation she’d had with Spike in the days following their confrontation in the parlor, fuming at his taunting anew every time she revisited it. In her mind, she formulated a dozen different ways she could have retorted and gained the upper hand in their verbal sparring match, and another hundred involving her launching herself at him and giving him the beating of his unlife. God, she wished they could actually fight; she was much better at conveying her feelings with a well-placed fist than with words. Imagining giving him a good sock to the nose was not nearly therapeutic enough in itself, she found, and she’d stalked around Netherfield those last two days with growing agitation. Spike, the coward, never showed his face again before she left, so she never got to use any of the arguments and barbs she’d thought up after the fact.

“Oh?” Buffy was brought back to the present by her mother’s voice. “Why’s that?”

“It seems we’ll be having company,” Giles sighed, reading the letter again.

“Will it be Willow?” Joyce asked thoughtfully. “I’m sure we weren’t expecting her, but we can accommodate her if—”

“No, it’s a gentleman,” Giles corrected, seating himself and setting the letter aside.

Joyce brightened. “Oh, Xander then! Anya, you didn’t tell me he wanted to come dine with us!”

Anya opened her mouth to answer, but Giles shook his head before she could get a syllable out.

“It’s not Xander, either.” Sweeping the glasses off his nose, Giles began to polish them with his shirtfront.

Uh-oh, thought Buffy. It was never a good sign when he did that.

“To be quite honest, I don’t know who he is, except that he is my cousin and he’s set to inherit everything when I die. Mr. Collins is his name.”

“Oh heavens,” her mother cried, looking anguished, “he could turn the girls out?”

“Mom, relax,” Dawn interjected, shoveling more eggs onto her plate. “It’s not like we actually live here. Giles isn’t going to die. We’ll be fine.”

“I don’t know about that,” Anya piped up. “This is supposed to be a romantic story, but I sure as hell didn’t feel loved as I was lying in my sick bed. I haven’t been sick for a thousand years but lemme tell ya, I’ve been around a lot of dying people and I was feeling death’s clammy hands all over me. Who’s to say Rupert couldn’t kick it? Maybe it’s one of those sad romances, you know? People write them all the time.”

Anya looked up from the toast she was spreading with marmalade to find six pairs of disapproving glares directed at her.

Buffy shook her head. “Moving on: when is this guy supposed to show up, Giles? And how long will he stay?”

She didn’t much like the idea of a phony inserting himself into their family dynamic, forcing them to stick to topics he could understand and avoid discussion of their other lives in Sunnydale. With the militia in town, Cordy and Dawn had been making frequent trips to Meryton to circulate among their ranks, and when they came home they talked of nothing else. Sometimes they struggled to recall the fact that the phonies weren’t real and this wasn’t where they belonged. Tara was often at Willow’s and fared better because of their work reconstructing Giles’ collection, but she had her moments too. It was unnerving to Buffy.

Not everyone was bothered by these lapses. Aside from her recent illness, Anya seemed to be enjoying her trip to Regency England and wasn’t fazed when she occasionally forgot the details of her life before.

“Muses aren’t the type to cause needless cruelty,” Anya once said, upon recalling their predicament. “They’re very goal-oriented creatures. Just let her do her thing and it’ll be fine.”

Buffy’s mother was likewise untroubled. When Buffy asked her on her feelings about it, Joyce had shrugged.

“It’s nice to get away sometimes, dear. Be someone else, explore a new place. Can you remember the last time we went somewhere as a family and had a nice vacation?”

Buffy had tried to explain that this wasn’t a vacation, not in the slightest, but Joyce happily disagreed and returned to her embroidery.

Finally replacing the spectacles on his face, Giles answered Buffy’s question. “This afternoon. Around four, I believe. As for how long his visit will be, I haven’t a clue, but probably for several days, if not longer.”

“Longer?” Buffy frowned expressively. “God, why does everything stretch out so long around here?”

“Well, at least it’ll be s-something new,” Tara said optimistically, though she looked sad. “I’ll visit Willow and be back before then.”

Giles nodded, helping himself to a link of breakfast sausage. “Yes, very good, Tara. If you could bring back her notes on Burke’s Demonic Physiologies, I would appreciate it.”

Buffy spent the remainder of the morning with Anya. Anya still wasn’t her first choice of company, but with the other girls all gone out of the house (Tara to visit Willow, Cordelia and Dawn to town), it was either her, the phony servants, or her mother. She loved her mother, but her weirdly strident behavior was wigging her out. As much as Buffy would have loved to hear her mom bash Spike a few days—weeks?—ago, and despite their recent parlor spat, she found her mother’s sudden Spike-hatred disturbing. It felt unnatural. Likewise, her cooing over Xander and his fat fake bank account was uncomfortable.

“He really was quite a hunk,” Anya was saying as they strolled across their park in the warm morning sun, “you know, in a Regency way.”

When Buffy had passed on the opportunity to spend the day with her mother gush over Xander, she had unwittingly signed up for a morning listening to Anya sing her praises for him. She sighed internally. It wasn’t like she thought Xander didn’t deserved to be admired; he was her goofy, loyal friend after all, and she wanted him to be happy. But there was really only so much Xander-worship she could take, and Anya was getting increasingly more graphic in her admiration.

“So, who do you think Mr. Collins will be?” Buffy said, heading off the looming threat of hearing a loving description of Xander’s more private attributes. “Someone we know?”

“Could be anyone,” Anya mused, apparently diverted enough by the question to shelve her unwinding Xander fantasy, “but my metaphorical money’s on Riley.”

Buffy stopped dead in her tracks, her heart lurching uncomfortably.

“Oh my God, Riley!” How could she forget about Riley, her boyfriend, her rock, her blissfully normal-ish man-candy with special ops training? Especially when the subject of boyfriends and sex had come up not three days ago!

Anya nodded thoughtfully, walking on without her. “Mmm, yes, I was wondering when he might make an appearance. You know, since he’s so important to you.”

“Absolutely. So important. The most important. One could say the important-est,” Buffy rambled, her pulse skyrocketing as she caught up with Anya.

“Of course, my money being metaphorical and therefore absolutely worthless, there really is no risk if I am wrong and he isn’t Mr. Collins. I wouldn’t waste precious real money betting on it.”

“It’ll definitely be him,” Buffy said with brittle confidence. It had to be him, right? Everyone else who was important to her was here—hell, there were even some people who weren’t! If Spike and Harmony had somehow made the cut, Riley was bound to show up sooner or later.

Guilt twisted in her gut like a knife. Riley. Seriously, why hadn’t she thought of him sooner? And how confused must he have been, alone for longer than Willow in this make-believe world populated by make-believe people? Would he remember her, or had the muse’s story had long enough to ease his recollection of Sunnydale far into the recesses of his mind?

Suddenly four o’clock seemed impossibly far away.

Her stomach in knots, Buffy steered them back toward the house. When they got back, she immediately went to her room and began poring over her wardrobe in search of a better dress. Anya added commentary that by terms was helpful and not at all as she tried on different colors and patterns.

By the time the other girls returned, Buffy was having one of the maids do her hair while she tried not to break anything with her Slayer-strength-fueled anxiety. Anya shared her theory that Mr. Collins was Riley with the sisters, and there was much discussion and excitement between them—except for Buffy, whose nerves were increasingly frayed. It made her angry, how jumpy she was; how many demons and vampires had she faced, and how many world-ending crises? How could she be so calm in the face of imminent danger and death but devolve into a nervous wreck about something like this?

There was a knock at the front door.

The girls had all moved to the parlor once Buffy’s hair was finished, but now they clambered to their feet. Pressing into the entryway eagerly, they left just enough room for Giles to squeeze through and answer the door.

It swung open, afternoon sunlight streaming into the antechamber, revealing the figure of Mr. Collins.

Buffy’s pounding heart stuttered.

No one could speak.

They had expected to find a tall, sturdy frame filling up the doorway, but saw only a short, slight one. Instead of Riley’s bright, midwestern smile greeting them, they were met by a nervous frown.

“Um, hi guys,” Mr. Collins said.

No, it was definitely not Riley.

It was Jonathan.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last chapter that I already had pre-written. I'll try to get a new chapter up every week, but I'm also working on a personal writing project and may be late from time to time. But I've been loving writing this, so never fear, I'll be updating!

“Why is he here, again?” Cordelia crossed her arms in front of her as skewered Jonathan to his seat with a withering glare.

Jonathan raised his hand timidly. “I’d also like to know that—and where is here, exactly?”

Giles, sitting at the head of the table, sighed heavily. “We’re the subject of a muse’s whim, and this is her world. She clearly thought you fit the role of Mr. Collins.”

“Not that.” Cordelia testily waved a hand. “I mean why is he here? Why now?”

“That is a rather good question; why did you come to Longbourn, Jonathan?”

Jonathan shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He looked even more petite in regency attire; gone were the days he could shrink into over-sized t-shirts to hide from probing eyes.

“Well, I’m living in this parsonage near Lady Catherine’s estate, right? I just woke up there a few weeks ago. I kinda thought I was dreaming at first, or maybe that one of my spells did something weird. But then I forgot about all that and everything just became…normal. Like when I did that spell last year…well, you know. Then last week this lady with creepy eyes showed up at my door. She told me I had a greater inheritance and that I should come here.” He was silent for a moment, shrugging. “It seemed like a good idea at the time.”

“That was the muse!” Buffy exclaimed with a mixture of anger and relief. Relief because Jonathan had seen their magical jailor too, meaning she wasn’t insane or wrong like she sometimes found herself wondering. Angry because it once again confirmed that they were puppets dancing on the muse’s string.

There was silence at the table as they absorbed what Jonathan had said.

“Yes, that’s all very interesting,” Giles finally said absently. “Well you’re here now, Jonathan. As they say, the plot thickens.”

As a second silence stretched, the family began to pick at the food on their plates.

“So, Jonathan,” Joyce ventured at length, “you said you lived near a Lady Catherine? Anyone we know?”

Jonathan shook his head, covering his mouth with his napkin as he finished chewing some potatoes.

“No, I’ve never seen her before. But she’s beautiful and really, really rich and has like, the biggest house I’ve ever seen.” He puffed up a little, suddenly preening. “She asks me to visit all the time. And she’s advised me to marry someone so I won’t be alone and I could bring extra company to Rosings.”

At the mention of marriage, Cordelia almost choked on her bite. Dawn pat her back vigorously while Tara and Buffy exchanged a look. Anya, who had only ever seen Jonathan in passing when she was a vengeance demon at Sunnydale High, nodded her approval.

“She seems like a sensible woman, Lady Catherine. You should. The people of this place might be fake and bound by regency-era custom, but if you married one you might be able to have sex.”

Now Giles coughed, slamming his napkin to his lips before he could spew his mouthful of wine all over the table. Anya didn’t seem to notice, but gained a distant, dreamy look in her eye.

“Sex would make this story a lot better.”

“Anya,” Joyce chastised quickly, her eyes darting to Dawn. Her youngest daughter was giggling behind her hand, her blue eyes wide with delight at the spectacle unfolding over the evening meal. But Joyce’s censure was tempered by the idea that was unfolding in her mind, one that made her eyes twinkle in a way Buffy knew spelled trouble as she glanced at her mother from across the table.

For his part, Jonathan flushed beet red. Still, Anya’s frankness seemed to appeal to him, because the rest of the night his eyes flitted to her face, shining with something like budding hope.

Buffy barely listened to the rest of the conversation around the dinner table or later in the sitting room. The knots crowding her stomach earlier had disappeared, leaving a yawning pit.

Riley. It hadn’t been Riley. Disappointment joined the guilt gnawing away at her as she wondered, yet again, why she hadn’t thought of him earlier. It was this place, she decided. It only made sense; it was constantly dulling her memory of Sunnydale and she was just as constantly fighting to keep it in focus. Riley had only been in her life a few months, and in the grand scheme of things that wasn’t much. She had been so busy holding onto the rest of herself that she hadn’t had time or energy to hold onto him, too.

But the argument sounded hollow even to herself. She might have only met Riley a few months ago, but he had become a major part of her life, being her boyfriend and all. And they had fought Adam together, which was an experience she would be hard-pressed to forget. In fact, it was easy to call that time to mind; it was such a recent, traumatic event that even the muse’s magic had difficulty erasing it.

The truth was, she just hadn’t thought about him.

“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Tara said tenderly as they sat in Buffy’s room later that night, “you’ve b-been fighting to preserve your own identity—and the rest of ours as well. You haven’t had time to think about him. A-and that’s okay.”

“But I have.” Buffy laid on her bed and stared up at the canopy above her miserably. “Tara, it’s like we’ve got nothing but time here.”

Beside her, Tara shrugged. “It may seem that way, but I’ve watched you. You spend every waking moment fighting this place, more than any of us. It’s not that you don’t care for Riley—you’ve just been swamped.”

“Maybe.” Buffy turned and hugged one of her pillows to herself, her voice muffled as she pressed her face into it. “I still feel awful.”

Tara patted Buffy’s shoulder. “Get some sleep. You’ll feel better. And even though it is j-just Jonathan, I think this is a good sign. The story is picking up, and that means we’re a step closer to the end.”

She peered over the pillow at her friend. “You’re right. There’s that.” She attempted a smile, and a weak one twitched the corners of her mouth. “Thanks, Tara.”

Squeezing her shoulder one last time, Tara rose and left. Buffy still felt the prickling of guilt, but she took Tara’s words and wrapped them around herself reassuringly as she drifted off to sleep.

 

***

 

It was early morning when Jonathan rose, almost beating the sun out of bed. He fidgeted nervously in his bed for fifteen minutes before rising and dressing, and then he spent another ten wandering around and investigating the guest room’s features, which in no way filled the time completely. It was a guest room and furnished as such, comfortable but lacking personal touches. Finally growing too restless, he left his quarters and went down to the lower level of the house in search of a maid to ask for tea, if only for something to do and perhaps a little company. He’d already figured out that most of the people here were magical constructs; he marveled at their realism and wondered at how their creation could be replicated. But since they didn’t seem to understand his probing questions, he had long since given up trying to find out about their origins. Instead he made small talk, which was still more than he’d managed with most real people back in Sunnydale. Well, except for when he was The Jonathan, but that didn’t really count. He’d had magic on his side then, magic he controlled—more or less.

He was idly chatting with a young maid about the weather when Mrs. Bennet—no, Mrs. Summers, discovered him.

“Oh, Jonathan,” she said in surprise, “I didn’t know you would be awake so early!”

As it turned out, making small talk with Mrs. Summers was almost as easy as speaking with the magical constructs. She had a natural good-humor about her, an easy friendliness that lent itself to making outcasts like Jonathan feel right at home. So, it wasn’t that long before they left the arena of small talk and returned to the topic touched upon the previous evening, that of marriage.

“Well you seem like a nice young man, Jonathan.” Joyce stirred milk into her tea as she spoke. “Am I wrong to assume you came here with that in mind?”

Jonathan colored again. “No, ma’am.”

She nodded thoughtfully. “Any young lady would be lucky to marry such a gentle man as you. Has anyone caught your eye?”

The words dried up in Jonathan’s mouth. He took a sip of his own tea before he spoke again. Even still, his voice cracked.

“I—I thought maybe Miss Jane—or-or Anya might…”

A slight frown appeared on Joyce’s face. “Oh, my first-born is lovely, but I’m afraid that she already has a serious suitor.”

“Oh.” Jonathan sipped his tea again and wished it was something stronger.

“But there are the other girls,” Joyce added brightly.

The young man considered his options. The youngest girl, Dawn, barely crossed his mind before he rejected the notion; she was obviously too young. Cordelia—the idea of making overtures to her made him flinch preemptively. She’d never go for him, and he could barely look at her without quailing under the memory of her scathing remarks from the few times she’d noticed him in high school.

Tara? She seemed gentler, demure. But he also knew from his time as The Jonathan that she wasn’t the slightest bit interested in him.

That left Buffy.

At first the idea seemed impossible. Buffy was scary strong and way out of his league; Jonathan knew these truths to be immutable. But then his thoughts took an unexpectedly optimistic turn. Hadn’t she saved him from himself in high school? Hadn’t she been kind to him after his whole power-trip debacle? She could be gentle and compassionate as well as fierce. Maybe those softer traits would work in his favor. And besides, her family needed to cement a connection with him. The future of their estate rested in his hands.

Jonathan nodded to himself. Buffy was by her very nature the self-sacrificing sort. She’d understand.

With that in mind, he proceeded to tell Mrs. Summers his preference with newfound confidence.

 

***

 

“God, did he have to come along?”

“Shhh,” Buffy hissed to her younger sister, glancing back at Jonathan as they walked toward Meryton. “Yes,” she continued in a whisper, “he was poking around Giles’ study and distracting him. If we want to make any headway against this muse, we need Giles focused.”

“Hence, Jonathan comes with us.” Dawn sighed, pouting impressively. She hadn’t forgiven him for his reality-warping ego-trip last year; she’d torn up her signed N-Sync poster as she pledged her undying love for him and hung a Jonathan swimsuit calendar in the empty space on her wall. When the spell was broken her enthusiasm for all things Jonathan dried up, but her beloved poster remained a hopeless pile of scraps in the bottom of her trash bin.

“What’re you lovely ladies talking about?”

Buffy whipped her head around, surprised and a little disturbed by just how much Jonathan sounded like his smoother counterpart. Wherever that confidence had come from, thither it fled under Buffy’s piercing gaze.

“Sorry, I-I mean, what’re you guys talking about?”

“Just my signed N-Sync poster,” Dawn answered with cold scorn.

Jonathan, knowing nothing about the lasting pain he’d caused Buffy’s little sister, muttered a confused “oh.”

The walk after that was mostly Jonathan babbling about Lady Catherine, his phony benefactor, and how rich she was. The girls took turns asking polite questions or vaguely humming to uphold the charade that they were listening.

Buffy had been antsy to get out of the house again, but was regretting it by the time they reached Meryton. Jonathan seemed to always be at her elbow, edging toward her whenever she moved to a different part of their traveling group. She figured it was because, of the present company, she was the one he knew best. Well, aside from Cordelia, who looked daggers at him any time he drifted too close to her.

He was once again sidling up to Buffy and asking her all kinds of inconsequential questions (“so, um, do you have a favorite flower or something? A favorite color?”) when Cordelia and Lydia spied a group of men in bright red uniforms chatting outside a shop.

“Denny!” Cordelia called excitedly, waving.

The small cadre of men turned, and among them was a familiar face that instantly sent Buffy rocketing forward—that is, until the muse’s noose yanked her back to where she stood.

But it didn’t matter. Breathlessly, she called his name.

“Angel!”

She said it at the same time as Cordelia.

Angel’s soulful brown eyes rounded and his face brightened as he caught sight of them. But his movements were sedate as he approached, cautious even. It was clear to Buffy he already knew the punishing jerk of the muse’s leash.

“Buffy! Cordy!” His broad smile warmed Buffy as he grew nearer. She knew she had her issues with him, but it was still damn good to see him. Any port in a storm and all that.

She barely registered Dawn crossing her arms and giving him the most frigid greeting possible. Tara and Anya were much more gracious.

His brow clouded and his mouth fell into its typical brooding lines as he paused before them.

“I would hug you, but…”

“Yeah, this muse thing is a real bitch,” Cordelia said, obviously relieved by Angel’s presence, “please tell me you know how to deal with her, because the Slayer hasn’t had much luck with the slayage.”

Buffy tossed her a dark look. It wasn’t like she hadn’t tried or that she wasn’t trying to find a way. They just didn’t have the resources here…

A stricken look crossed Angel’s face. He placed a hand over his eyes as their words sank in.

“A muse, of course. Why didn’t I see it sooner?”

“Sooo, what’s the sitch? How do we get free?”

Grimacing, Angel let his hand fall away from his face. The shock of the news drained away, leaving a scowl behind.

“We don’t. Muses aren’t demons. They can’t be killed.”

“What?” That was news to Buffy. “No, no, no way. There has to be a-a special weapon or something! A spell, maybe?”

He shook his head. For the first time Buffy noticed that his hair was long and gathered into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. She wasn’t typically attracted to men with long hair, but she found it distractingly appealing on him.

Focus, she told herself sharply.

“You can’t kill an idea. Can’t really cage it either. And bindings and banishings don’t work very well on them. Muses are inspiration incarnate, Buffy. As long as there’s been sentience, they’ve existed. They’re eternal.” His frown deepened. “Unfortunately for us.”

“Well, that’s more than we’ve learned in the last two weeks combined, and we’ve been talking to you less than five minutes,” Anya commented. “Your watcher sucks, Buffy.”

“He doesn’t suck,” Buffy snapped. “Why didn’t you know about all this-this undying idea stuff? You’ve been a demon for how many centuries?”

“Twelve. And like you just said, I was a demon.” She shrugged. “Supernatural society is the same as any other. It’s got circles. I didn’t move in the one with muses. Anyway, I don’t know why you’re all so worried. Like I’ve said a million times, she just wants us to get to the end of the story and then we’ll be free. It’s a better deal than most creatures-that-can-create-their-own-pocket-dimensions make with mortals. You should be grateful.”

“Wait a minute,” Angel said, shaking his head and squinting, “story? What story?”

“Look!” Dawn suddenly exclaimed, pointing. Buffy glanced in the direction Dawn indicated, irritated by the interruption.

Two men on horseback came riding up the street, both in fine riding clothes and top hats. It took her a moment to realize that it was Xander and Spike.

“Ahn!” Xander called as he pulled against the reins. “Buffster! Dawn! Guys! And—Jonathan?”

Jonathan waved nervously.

Angel opened his mouth to greet Xander, he was interrupted by a voice dripping with disdain.

“Oh, bloody hell!”

Buffy transferred her gaze from Angel to Spike. This was the first time she’d seen him up close outside in the daytime, Gem of Amara incident aside. The sky was overcast, but the planes of his face looked different under the diffuse daylight, though she couldn’t pinpoint how exactly. He was familiar and alien all at once, and she suddenly felt like she was looking at a stranger. A very angry, murderous stranger.

Maybe not so strange after all.

The muscles in his jaw clenched in rage as he and Angel stared at each other. They reminded Buffy of two tom cats facing off in an alley, yowling as they prepared to pounce.

“Spike?” Angel growled. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m trapped, you useless git, same as you.”

“All right, what’s going on here?” Angel turned back to the larger group before him. “Something about a story?”

Buffy was about to respond when Spike suddenly started laughing.

“What?” Angel demanded.

Spike rocked back in his saddle and swiped at the tears gathering in the corners of his eyes.

“You really have no idea, do you? Weren’t ever one for readin’ much, ‘s I recall.”

“Buffy,” Angel turned to her, a pleading note in his voice. She gave him an exasperated look. As if she could do anything! If she could punch him that’d be a different story, but as it was the most she could do was glare.

“Pride and Prejudice,” Spike continued with a sadistic grin, “Jane Austen. Little Miss Love-Starved Slayer wanted to get lost in a sweepin’ romance and brought us all along for the ride.”

Fury brought the blood roaring into Buffy’s cheeks.

“That’s not how it went down,” she lied, “and if you call me love-starved again I’ll make sure you starve when we get back.”

“Is that your best, Slayer?” Spike narrowed one eye and twisted his mouth. “Cos it’s weak, and that’s not a good look on you.”

Angel made to cross the gap between them and pull Spike off his horse, but gasped and clutched his stomach before the motion fully started.

“Wow, you two are so immature,” said the fourteen-year-old behind Buffy with venom, rolling her eyes. “This isn’t helping anyone.”

“It’s helpin’ me feel better,” Spike replied, chuckling as he watched Angel fight the urge to lunge at him again.

The phonies were watching all of this with an air of confused disapproval, but finally the one named Denny recalled his original intent when approaching the Bennet party.

“If you don’t mind me intruding, I wanted to introduce you to my friend Mr. Wickham.”

“Wickham?” Spike exclaimed, his eyebrows climbing. He snorted and made a sour face. “Figures.”

“Wait a minute,” Angel murmured, his brow furrowing, “Isn’t he…?”

“A wanker like you? Yeah.” Then Spike straightened in his saddle, an avid gleam sparking to life in his blue eyes. “Guess who I am, mate?”

Angel didn’t reply, but his mouth tightened with understanding.

“Yeah, just let that sink in.” He leered down at his grandsire before flicking his gaze over Buffy. “Oh, and don’t bother tellin’ your honey; got the memory of a goldfish for these things, I’m afraid. She’ll just have to find out herself.”

With that, he turned his horse in a tight circle and spurred it to a canter, heading back toward Netherfield at a brisk clip.

 

*

 

“It just doesn’t make sense. I should be Mr. Darcy.”

Buffy was walking alongside Angel as their party continued down Meryton’s streets. After they had recovered from the heated encounter between the two vampires, Dawn had insisted that they still do what they came to town to accomplish, namely finding the perfect accessories for the gown she would wear to the Netherfield ball. Xander hadn’t joined them; he’d felt the need to go after Spike and had given one last lingering look to Anya before riding away.

“What’s so important about Mr. Darcy?” Buffy wrinkled her nose. “If Spike’s playing him, he can’t be good.”

Angel gave her a dry grin. “Well, I can’t recall much, but I think he might be the hero of the story.”

“Yuck,” she stuck her tongue out and shuddered. “That can’t be right!” Then she peered at him curiously. “You don’t know what happens?”

He frowned and glanced at his boots. Her eyes followed his, then swept back up his figure. God, he looked good in his regimentals. She was starting to see why her sisters were spending so much time slobbering all over the militiamen.

She jerked her gaze away from him and took a breath to clear her head. If Angel noticed, he had the tact not to say anything.

“Never read the book myself,” he confided reluctantly, “but there was a girl once at a party…she told me about it.” A shadow of pain crossed his face.

Buffy didn’t miss the expression. “I’m guessing this encounter took place before the gypsy curse?”

He nodded but didn’t elaborate. That was good, because Buffy didn’t want him to. He looked so human in the light of day. It was easy to pretend he was as they moved down the busy street, past colorful storefronts and other shoppers like any other couple. Well, not couple couple, but any two regular people.

Pulling himself from his brooding, he flashed Buffy a small reassuring smile.

“I know this has to be hard on you, not being able to do much. I know I hate it. But Anya does have a point; we’ll be okay.”

Contrary to being helpful, his words prompted a swell of anger in her chest. She crossed her arms.

“It’s not that I think anyone will get hurt at this point. But doesn’t it bother you that we’re basically being led around by an invisible hand? That we don’t know any of the rules and we get hurt for breaking them?”

He shrugged. “Maybe? But if you’re comfortable with the idea of God or fate under normal circumstances, then why should this bother you?”

“Because she’s not God and this isn’t the real world. And when we step outside our roles here, we get a big-ole sock to the stomach. That isn’t fate nudging us in the right direction, that’s abuse.”

He shook his head. “I’m not saying it’s right, but Buffy, she basically is God here. This isn’t the real world, it’s her world. The only way to win is by playing by her rules.”

“Yeah, well, maybe,” Buffy scoffed, “but maybe not. I’m not just gonna play along and become this supernatural floozy’s Barbie to smash against other dolls.”

It was Angel’s turn to look peeved. “I get it, just…you’ve got to be smart about this.”

Buffy stopped in her tracks. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Angel paused too, the taut lines around his eyes softening as he caught the look on her face.

“I’m sorry, Buffy. I didn’t mean to say it like that. I just mean that sometimes it’s easier to go with the flow, not look too hard. Whatever this is, nothing in this place is going to hurt us. It’s not ideal circumstances, but you can relax and take the load of protecting everyone off your shoulders for once.”

A few cutting remarks sprang to the front of her mind, but the sun broke through the clouds at that moment and basked his face in warm light. He closed his eyes briefly and turned into it, letting it hit him fully on the cheeks. And then she realized how freeing all of this must be for him, how his past and his weaknesses and woes didn’t matter here. It was the smallest of gestures, but the happiness and the ease in his expression filled her with sudden longing. She wanted that for herself.

Still, there was a hard knot in her chest that refused to uncoil.

“I guess I could try,” she admitted slowly, beginning down the walkway once more. “Giles said that muses never keep their subjects for too long when they, you know, kidnap them or whatever.”

Angel nodded his agreement as he followed. “I don’t know much about them, but they aren’t evil. Insanely powerful at times, yes, but not malicious.”

“Never thought power could come without the ‘also probably evil’ disclaimer.”

“Of course it can. You’re not evil.”

She glanced over at him. He was looking at her with that perfect, heartbreaking intensity that made her feel all woozy.

Buffy smiled despite herself. After a heartbeat, she fixed him with a sly, sidelong glance.

“So, you really think Spike is the hero?”

He laughed a little. “Like I said, I never read the book. I hope I’m wrong.”

“You have to be.” Buffy nodded decisively. “The muse picked us to fill roles we’d fit, right? Spike hates heroics. Ergo, he’s not the hero.”

“A sound deduction.” Angel nodded approvingly, good humor returning to his features.

Deciding to leave her troubles behind—at least for the afternoon—Buffy grinned and nudged him with her elbow, indicating the storefront her sisters were disappearing into with a flurry of excited chatter.

“Come on, let’s go waste a few hours listening to my bratty baby sis complain about how she can’t find the right lace for the ball.”

He returned her smile with interest. “Sounds fun. What ball?”

 

***

 

So, Angel the Brooding Git was here.

Spike reached Netherfield soon after leaving Meryton but didn’t return to the house, opting for a ride around the grounds instead. It wasn’t a beautiful day, per say, but it was a passable one. And honestly, he couldn’t bear the idea of going inside and getting cornered by Harm, not when he needed time alone to think.

Seeing that tosser’s stupid mug boiled Spike’s blood, but then, he’d already figured out that this muse chit was a cruel god. She’d made him and the Harris boy roommates, thrown Harmony into the bargain but made it impossible to shag her, and cast him as the bloody love-interest of the Slayer of all people. He supposed it only made sense she’d heap on the misery and bring the Great Poof along.

Then again, maybe there was method to her madness. He couldn’t deny he took great pleasure in seeing Angel in the role of Wickham—moreover, that as Darcy he would possess the one thing Peaches would always want but could never have. And there was nothing his sadist of a grandsire could do about it.

Course, that still meant he had to get cozy with the Slayer. The wicked grin that had been spreading across his face fell at the thought. He still couldn’t fathom why the bloody muse bint had made him Darcy in her little production. Why was he even here at all? And why couldn’t the Slayer have picked another book, something more exciting like 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea or Treasure Island? Or, better yet, Dracula or an Anne Rice novel. Then he could feed, truly feed, like he hadn’t been able to since getting chipped by those snip-happy doctors.

Hell, if she was so desperate for romance and a good shag, why couldn’t she be like every other woman and pick up one of those smutty paperbacks that were a staple in every library and bookstore worth their salt? If the muse had to include him in the Slayer’s escapist fantasy, he wouldn’t have minded that so much. He’d run around shirtless in a kilt or whatever if it meant he got to make good use of his essentials.

Course, if it had been a paperback romance and he was the lead, that would mean…

He grimaced and quickly pushed the thought away. No. Slayers were for killing, not shagging. He had to remind himself of that from time to time; it was easy, he told himself, for a vampire to get their violent and sexual urges confused. Totally natural, even.

Anyway, the muse was clearly off her bird, making him Mr. Darcy, but unless he wanted to stay stuck in this boring plane of existence sharing space with the boy and Harm for eternity, he’d have to play along. And the book didn’t ever explicitly show Darcy and Elizabeth kiss—they just got married and that was the end. He might be spared tasting the Slayer’s disgusting pouty pink lips once more if the muse stuck to form.

Trouble was, she’d already made some adjustments. It wasn’t like Anya was the perfect Jane, poised and reserved and sweet. Supporting characters were missing and times were abbreviated, though not nearly enough for Spike’s strained patience. Muses were the spirit of creative innovation, after all. So far it seemed she was intent on giving Buffy as close to the original as was reasonable, though, and he hoped it remained that way.

As the sun sank lower in the sky and his mount began to tire, he guided the horse back toward Netherfield. It would be dinner soon, and Xander and Harmony would surely be wondering where he’d been. No doubt Harris would want to know who Wickham was and what he meant in the grand scheme of things. Likewise Harm would want to prattle on about the whole business, even as Harris inevitably forgot what they were talking about. The endless loop of answering the same questions over and over would begin, and Harm would get frustrated…

Spike sighed after he turned over his horse to the groom at the stables. Best nip by the kitchen and grab a bottle of scotch. He already knew he’d need it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, full disclosure: I know Angel and Cordelia get pretty close sometime during AtS. But I haven't watched the show myself. I tried, but it just didn't grip me at the time. Consequently, I'm not really sure how Angel and Cordelia relate to each other at this point in the timeline. I'm going to say that because of the muse's magic, they may not act as close as they are in Los Angeles. Sorry Angel fans!

**Author's Note:**

> I intend for this story to take place between The Replacement and Out of My Mind in the BtVS canon, and hopefully when it all comes together it'll feel like an episode or series of episodes in its own right. It will follow the trajectory of Pride and Prejudice's plot (with some deviations), meaning this will probably be a longer fic. This is my first foray into writing fan fiction, so I'll be learning the proper way of doing things and how to pace myself as I go along. Feel free to give me pointers! I've already written a sizeable chunk of this so I should be able to post pretty regularly for a while. I've had a lot of fun writing it so far and I hope you have just as much fun reading it!


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